Dozens of care homes across the Fylde coast are failing to meet basic standards, The Gazette can today reveal.Inspections carried out by watchdog the Care Quality Commission have discovered 24 homes providing care and nursing for the elderly falling short of the standards set by the regulator.Care homes based in North Shore, South Shore, St Annes, Knott End, Lytham, Cleveleys, Thornton, Fleetwood and Pilling are among those found to have failings.The CQC expects homes it inspects without warning to treat residents with respect, show high levels of care and good management.But a string of inspections carried out since the start of this year have discovered a number of failings ,Evidence of residents being left in pain after not being given medication, a scabies outbreak, and ‘resident-on-resident’ abuse was found at Abbeydale. Police arrested a member of staff at Le Grand care home, in Freckleton, in August 2012 following allegations from another member of staff that 88-year-old Marie Lowe had been assaulted.The man was never charged following his arrest on suspicion of grievous bodily harm, Today, community leaders have called on all the homes to look carefully at their failings – and act. “One of the problems which always arises is the family are so frightened of reporting things because they fear the cared for person in the home will not get the treatment they should get (if someone complains), so consequently the families are reticent to say what is going on. Gordon Marsden, MP for Blackpool South, said: “The financial crisis, in terms of care homes, and there has been a long term problem with this, sometimes affects the ability of care home owners to improve and maintain them.
Posted on: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 17:24:58 +0000