A CARE HOME may face enforcement action if it fails to meet new safety and management requirements.

Inspectors from the Care Quality Commission visited Orchard Lodge in Dorking Road, Horsham, to check if the care home has fulfilled its agreement to improve the quality of care for people.

The service, run by Sussex Health Care, has been placed under special measures since last July.

Inspectors returned three months later and concluded the care home had not improved and staff are not familiar with clients’ needs.

The care home did not reflect improvements and is currently under police investigation.

Inspectors said: “This service will remain in special measures and continue to be kept under review by CQC and, if needed, could be escalated to urgent enforcement action.

“Where necessary, another inspection will be conducted within a further six months.

“If there is not enough improvement so there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take action to prevent the provider from operating this service.

“This could lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration.

“If the service has demonstrated improvements when we inspect it and it is no longer rated as inadequate for any of the five key questions, it will no longer be in special measures.”

Inspectors found staff did not complete clients’ monitoring correctly.

They raised concerns about how nurses could prescribe appropriate medication to patients.

They also found staff were not provided with clear guidance on how to apply cream for patients with complex physical disabilities.

Inspectors said: “We identified there was a lack of consistent guidance in place to ensure staff knew where and how to apply such creams and a lack of records completed to demonstrate people had received their creams.

“The provider wrote to us after the inspection and told us by November 10 2017 all topical cream guidance for staff to use would be in place with an associated body map to state where the cream needed to be applied and a form completed by care staff after each application.

“At this inspection in January, this area of care had not improved sufficiently.”

Beech Lodge, in Horsham and also run by SHC, is under police investigations following complaints of neglect about 43 residents.

A Safeguarding Adult Review published that two residents, Matthew Bates and Gary Lewis, may have been hurt deliberately when they were both admitted with broken legs on April 1 2015.