A care home has been rated inadequate and served a formal warning after several concerning incidents put residents at risk of harm.

Melrose Residential Home in Moss Lane, Leyland, which provides care for up to 26 people, was rated overall inadequate in an updated report published by the Care Quality Commission on June 27.

The CQC carried out an unannounced inspection to check whether the home had improved issues related to the safety of medicine, infection risks, and visiting arrangements, which were noted at the last inspection in 2021.

The most recent report details how the care home failed to make improvements so the CQC has issued a Notice of Proposal.

It states that if the home has not made enough improvement within six months, and is still rated as inadequate, the home will be forced to stop operating.

During the inspection, the CQC discovered one distressing incident involving a resident who was left in pain as an ambulance wasn’t called for more than two hours.

The report states: “Records showed a person was found at 6.40am in pain, the accident record reports they were not found until 8.10am and an ambulance was not called until 9am as it was a busy shift.”

Inspectors said there was “not enough competent staff deployed effectively” to meet people’s needs and “staff had not always been safely recruited.”

One resident was being given their medication with breakfast when it is supposed to be taken an hour before eating food.

The report went on: “When we reviewed the rota we found both day and night shifts which did not have staff trained in medicines management.

“Day staff told us, there was no staff on duty through the night who could administer medicines and there was not an early morning medicines round.

“One person had allergies recorded incorrectly on their medicine administration record, the record had not been checked by a second member of staff.”

There was also a lack of effective infection prevention and control measures in the home as toilet pedestals had dust, hair and urine stains on them.

Some staff also wore artificial nails and were wearing rings with stones in them which causes risk of cross infection.

The report states: “The home was not cleaned to a suitable standard to minimise the risk and spread of infection and staff were not routinely following safe practice guidelines to reduce this risk.”

The walls in the kitchen were stained with grease and the oven was rusty and dirty as well as there being a build-up of dust, debris and some stale food in the kitchen.

Clean washing was found next to bags of soiled clothing which were waiting to be washed. Inspectors also found discarded solid laundry bags in the bin which should have been dissolved in hot water to prevent cross contamination.

The report concludes: “We will meet with the provider following this report being published to discuss how they will make changes to ensure they improve their rating to at least good.

“We will work with the local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.”

Melrose Residenttial Home has been contacted for a comment.