Chiltern View Care Home, a residential care home that was registered to provide personal care for up to 36 people, was closed by the CQC, and fined more than £25,000, following an inspection by Central Bedfordshire Council. 

The council’s inspection, which took place in May 2022, discovered a number of serious food hygiene issues, including an active mouse infestation in the kitchen, out-of-date food in the fridge, and inadequate cleaning measures for both the kitchen and equipment.

The council criticised Chiltern View for having ‘failed to establish adequate procedures for pest control’, not putting into practice ‘a food safety system’ and ‘neglecting cleanliness’. This led to a fine of £25,420 with costs of £5,230 awarded to the council.

The CQC was later prompted to inspect Chiltern View, due in part to the concerns raised by the Environmental Health Officer, resulting in an overall CQC rating of Inadequate in April 2023. The CQC reported that one resident had not had a meal for 18 hours, fire doors had been propped open, medicines were not managed safely, those on a pureed diet had been offered solid biscuits and residents were left in wet clothing. 

Multiple breaches were identified by the CQC, including in relation to leadership, staffing numbers and skills, safe care, protecting people from harm, infection control, medicines management, nutrition and hydration, dignity and respect, person-centred care and a lack of meaningful engagement for people.

Chiltern View was subsequently placed in special measures to address areas of extreme risk but sufficient improvements were not made. The CQC therefore took enforcement action to cancel the registered manager’s registration and remove Chiltern View from the provider’s registration. The intention of this action was to prevent the provider from being able to provide regulated activities from this location.

The events at Chiltern View highlight the need for care providers to consider health and safety holistically, ensuring that there is sufficient focus on all aspects. Often, it is the case that failures in one area of health and safety will go hand in hand with failures in other areas of health and safety.

In this instance, Chiltern View had taken steps to ensure that the kitchen was clean during the CQC inspection, but the food safety issues were clearly underpinned by much wider issues in relation to quality of care, ultimately leading to the closure of Chiltern View. 

Where care providers are having difficulties in one area of health and safety, this should not be addressed in a silo and a review of overall practices, policies and procedures will be critical.

For further advice, please contact Molly Quinney or a member of the regulatory team.