A FAILING Bournemouth care home has been closed after a string of damning reports revealed shocking neglect by its staff.

The Care Quality Commission said it was ‘left with no alternative’ but to shut Beechey House – a privately run home that had been responsible for 12 elderly dementia sufferers on Beechey Road in Charminster – after the latest inspection report published last month deemed it ‘not safe, not responsive and not well led’.

Following the unannounced visit in October, the CQC said it witnessed carers failing to give a resident suffering with pneumonia their prescribed antibiotics.

“The antibiotics were not administered in the morning or at lunchtime that day until we brought this to the attention of the registered manager,” the report said.

Inspectors found a broken fridge used to store medication and gaps in records meaning medicines may have been stored at inappropriate temperatures.

And the carers were slammed for being ‘not responsive to people’s needs’.

The report said: “One person had a runny nose and staff did not intervene until the mucus had reached the person’s lap.

“Another person attempted to stand up and indicated they needed to go to the toilet but staff did not change the person’s clothing until after lunch. A further person repeatedly called out but staff did not always have the time to respond or acknowledge the person, which led to the person becoming increasingly upset and agitated.”

The report said a care worker had used a cloth to clean a resident’s mouth, adding: “They told us that they used a cloth as there were no mouth swabs available.”

It also criticised the home for failing to seek immediate medical attention after a resident fell from their bed in the middle of the night and sustained facial injuries. The resident was later taken to hospital, which then made a safeguarding referral to the local authority.

The closure comes more than a year after the Daily Echo first reported the home had faced warning notices for a catalogue of failures, including staff leaving a resident in a urine-soaked bed for up to five days.

A CQC spokesman said: “We have had longstanding concerns about Beechey House and have taken enforcement action a number of times. We were left with no alternative but to cancel its registration.”

David Leighton, chief officer of Age UK Bournemouth, said: “The CQC seems to have done a good job here in closing a home providing unacceptably poor service but the problems with our care system go far beyond the failings of specific providers.”

And Bournemouth council’s portfolio holder for adult social care, Cllr Blair Crawford, added that he was glad the home had been shut and that no dementia sufferer should ever be subjected to such poor treatment.

The Echo made efforts to contact Beechey House, where the last known registered manager was Joanna Smart, but nobody appeared to be in the home when we visited and its telephone number and website are no longer in operation.