The manager of a care home slapped with a ‘requires improvement’ rating has accused the health watchdog of “killing” homes and “not seeing the good”.

Trisha King, who runs Woodside Residential Care Home in Whitfield, Dover, claims she was marked down using a “tick-box exercise” during a five-hour “snapshot” visit of the site.

She argues the facility housing up to 40 residents with dementia was penalised for a thickening agent being left out in a room two people shared and staff recording the wrong weight for a man on one day.

CQC inspectors visited the home in Whitfield Hill on December 5 and gave the provider a ‘requires improvement’ rating.

The health watchdog published its findings last week, the details of which sparked fury from Mrs King, accusing the CQC of “killing care homes”.

“A lot of providers are giving up because they can’t win,” she said.

“How much more do we have to do to prove we’re ‘good’?

“Don’t get me wrong, there are some homes that just need to have some work, but on the whole, most of the carers are good and work hard to look after people.

“The CQC is not seeing the good in homes and what people are trying to do, especially with the government pouring so little money into the service.

“They are destroying care homes in this country.”

In the report published last Wednesday, the CQC states it found two people’s thickening agent – used to increase the viscosity of food and drink – were not being stored in line with an NHS England safety alert in 2015. This recommends thickening powders should be kept securely and out of reach of people.

“We found two people who shared a room had their thickening agent sitting on their individual bedside tables,” the report states.

“They should come and stay with us for a week and see the bigger picture…”

“Although there had been no instances of people picking it up and inadvertently ingesting it, people were seen walking around the service without staff presence, which meant there was a potential risk.

“We raised this with the registered manager who immediately took action and following our visit developed an action plan to help prevent this from happening again.”

Mrs King “held her hands up” regarding the thickening agent – an issue mentioned several times throughout the report along with the incorrect weight recording – and took action to ensure this would not happen again.

But she said: “We acted on it straight away and gave them reassurances, which if we did, why is it in [the report]?

“Years ago, if [the CQC] found something and you rectified it, it wouldn’t be mentioned.

“Why do they have to mention it if it’s rectified?”

The CQC also says it found an error in recording one person’s weight on one specific date, which senior staff had not picked up.

But Mrs King added: “On this particular day, it looked like somebody had lost five kilos, which we’d automatically think wasn’t right as we know him, he didn’t look like he lost weight, we knew what he had eaten, plus we document what and when they eat and drink.

“I proved all that to [the CQC] and said it was an error.

“I got him reweighed and it was an error.

“They brought up that nobody had noticed it. I do a monthly audit but I look at it every week anyway and he’d only been weighed five days before.”

Mrs King, who has worked in the healthcare sector for 44 years, came out of retirement in 2023 and took up her post as manager.

Since then, she says there have been “a couple” of formal complaints but none have been substantiated.

She adds a safeguarding concern was raised about one resident and the care provided, which was fully investigated and closed.

The CQC also found people had to wait to be assisted a couple of times during the day, which led to one person “not being prompted at lunchtime in a timely manner”.

“This meant they sat in front of their lunch for 20 minutes before starting to eat,” the report states.

But Mrs King says the care home is “not an institution” and adds if inspectors had the resident’s care plan and asked staff and her family about her, they would be aware she is “sometimes there for a long time and we encourage her to eat herself”.

“We’re not of that ilk that lunch is only for half an hour and shoving food in mouths so it looks good and everything is put away nicely,” she said.

“We don’t mind how long they take, how much mess they get into and if they want to eat with their fingers, fine.

“These people we know so well and the staff are with them 12 hours a day.

“The CQC comes in for less than five hours and can make judgements. It’s bonkers. They should come and stay with us for a week and see the bigger picture.”

Woodside Residential Care Home previously had a ‘good’ rating, which was given in October 2021.

But during two inspections in 2022, it was handed two ‘requires improvement’ ratings.

“Their rating is not reflective of one incident…”

Six breaches of regulation were found at the CQC’s last visit to the home and it was given an inadequate rating on whether it was ‘well-led’ – one of five key questions the watchdog answers to produce an overall score of a home.

Improvements were found at the most recent inspection and the provider had met five of the breaches but there was one continued breach.

“Overall governance arrangements needed to be more robust to help ensure that shortfalls, mistakes or poor practice were identified and rectified,” the report states.

Last year, health secretary Wes Streeting branded the CQC “not fit for purpose” after an independent review uncovered major failings within the regulator.

Dr Penny Dash recommended the watchdog should rapidly improve operational performance, quality and timeliness of reports, rebuild expertise and relationships and make ratings more transparent.

In a statement, a CQC spokesman says ratings are designed so people can “make informed decisions about their own care and the care of loved ones”.

“When we inspected Woodside Residential Care Home in December last year, we found leaders at the home had made some improvements to how they were managing it, which is why we upgraded their ‘well-led’ rating from inadequate to requires improvement,” they said.

“They have built a solid foundation but there are still improvements needed to make sure all processes and systems in the home are embedded and working well to consistently keep people safe.

“This was the one area where the CQC still found the home was in breach of regulations.

“Their rating is not reflective of one incident but that processes didn’t always support staff to ensure people were consistently safe.”