A report into a troubled nursing home effectively closed down by Kent County Council has revealed it was "inadequate" in two key areas.

Barham House, near Canterbury, was forced to shut and find new homes for its residents after the authority cancelled its contract with the company running it.

Now, the Care Quality Commission has published the report which led to the drastic action being taken last month.

It say its inspection in January resulted in ‘inadequate ’ ratings in safety and how the home in The Street, Barham, was being led and "required improvement" in effectiveness and responsiveness.

But the report also praises the quality of caring as ‘Good’.

After the results were revealed to the county council, the authority says it had no choice but to terminate the home’s registration, effectively putting it out of business.

The home had previously had an overall “requires improvement” rating under former management before it was taken over by A Bright Care Ltd in 2019.

The latest CQC report, now concludes the service has deteriorated further and inspectors rated it as "inadequate" overall.

In summary the reports says: "There continued to be a lack of leadership and oversight at the service. Again, this had impacted on all areas

of people's care and treatment.

"The provider and manager had not developed an open and honest culture, centred around the people's needs and wishes. They did not have the required oversight of the service and poor and unsafe practice continued unchallenged.

"The provider had not acted to ensure all areas of the service were clean and free from the risk of infection.

"Covid-19 tests were not completed on visitors and staff. Robust arrangements had not been put in place to ensure all areas of the building were clean to minimise the risk of infection.

"Effective action had not been taken to assess and review risks to people. People's care and support had not been planned to mitigate risks and keep them as safe as possible.

"Detailed guidance had not been provided to staff about how to keep each people safe and well. There were not always enough staff on duty to meet people's needs and protect them from harm.

Staff continued not to be recruited safely. The provider had taken very little action to protect people from unsuitable staff since our last inspection.

"Checks had not been completed on new staff. No further checks had been completed on senior staff's character and conduct in previous roles.

"Concerns from the Disclosure and Barring service had not assessed to ensure staff were safe to work with vulnerable people. Staff did not have the skills they needed to keep people safe and respond in an emergency.

"People's medicines were not managed safely. People did not always receive the medicine they needed.

"Guidance was not in place to administer emergency medicines. Other medicines were not administered as prescribed.

"People were not protected from the risk of abuse. Safeguarding concerns had not been shared with the provider or the local authority safeguarding team.

"People, their relatives and visiting professionals had not been asked for their experiences of the service to drive improvement. Robust checks and audits had not been completed to understand the quality of the service and shortfalls we found had not been identified.

"Action had not been taken since our last inspection to address the poor quality care people received.

"Records of the care people received were not accurate and complete. Some confidential information about people was not disposed of securely."

“There has been issues but we haven’t been able to magically make things happen..."

A Bright Care director Mia Rhodes said she accepted there were some difficulties and failures, but was deeply disappointed the home had to close, leaving 17 residents needing new accommodation and 19 staff jobless.

She previously told KentOnline: “We have worked flat out during the pandemic, despite staff difficulties, to keep our residents safe and happy and have only lost one to Covid.

“It’s not our decision to close the home and we have fought it very hard, and invested so much to make improvements to the old building, including a new roof, which hasn’t been easy.

“There has been issues but we haven’t been able to magically make things happen.

“We asked for more time to get things right but KCC were not prepared to (give us it).”

The home’s website was still active this week but nobody was answering the phone when KentOnline called to make inquiries about its future.

Signs on fencing at the home suggest some sort of construction is taking place on the site.

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