Poor management of medicines tops the list of dangers within care homes

The Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) recent report identifies ‘safety’ as having the poorest ratings in their State of Adult Social Care report.

Of the five key questions the CQC asked of all services, safety had the poorest ratings, with 23% rated as ‘requires improvement’ and 2% as ‘inadequate’. The report defines people as safe “if people are protected from abuse and avoidable harm.”

Examples of poor safety included within the report ranged from people not getting their prescribed medicines, issues with record keeping, and dangerous levels of medicine being administered. In some cases poor medicines management was described as having extremely serious consequences. Failure to check that a member of staff was able to administer medicines on an ongoing basis was identified as leading to actual harm to people using services.

The CQC takes a hard line on safety and in September 2016 it prosecuted Cotton Hill care home following the death of a resident. Evidence was provided showing errors with the administration of his anti-coagulant medication. The care provider organisation was fined £50,000 and the former manager was fined £665.

Chris Gledhill, Managing Director of eMAR, comments on the findings: “The management of administration of medicines using paper-based systems is prehistoric and puts undue and unnecessary pressure on care home staff and managers.

“Technology can provide a safer process with a clear audit trail for the benefit of the people being cared for. Our technology solution allows staff to complete MARs via a smartphone or tablet saving care providers thousands of paper on paper each year. The system is intuitive and easy to use and requires little training as most care home staff are familiar with using smart devices and tablets in their day to day lives.”