Enter and View Report: Breckside Park

In November 2024, we visited Breckside Park Residential Home. It is registered to provide general residential care for older people. The old building has 26 rooms with shared toilets and bathrooms. Residents in this part of the building are not charged top up fees. The extension has another 7 rooms which are ensuite, with top up fee charges of £30 per week. 

Summary

During our visit to Breckside Park Residential Home we received positive feedback from multiple residents we spoke to, and the residents we saw all looked well cared for. The care home environment had some nice, homely touches, and we were pleased to see that residents could choose from 3 lounges. We thought the photo menu displayed on the board in the dining room was a good way of making the information about menu choices more accessible to residents.

There were, however, several areas where we thought the standards of cleanliness could and should be improved. This included dirty floors in multiple areas of the care home as well as unpleasant odours during our visit.

We also were concerned that the door in the hallway that led to narrow stairs into the basement was left open multiple times during our visit, as we felt that was a potential falls risk for some of the residents. We are aware of several historical incidents of other care home residents coming to harm accessing staircases that were supposed to be inaccessible to them, so this is a cause for concern for us. We immediately made management aware as well as Liverpool City Councils Quality Assurance team who visited and advised that there is a weighted closing system in place with two handles required to open the door.

Recommendations 

We make the following recommendations for Breckside Park Residential Home:

• Ensure that the door to the basement has a working automatic door closer and that staff do not leave this open.
• Add a notice on both sides of this door advising that this door should be kept closed.
• Carry out regular spot checks to ensure good cleaning standards.

Response from management

Management was quick to respond to the recommendations we made and feedback we have received from the Quality Assurance team at Liverpool City Council also says that the door in question has now been made safe.

"Thank you for your email with attached report, please be advised that we are currently in the process of improving the overall cleanliness of the home we are developing new cleaning tools to assist with the Management of the cleanliness.  Odor in the home was due to service user hording waste in their bedroom, service user had refused to allow staff in to clean the bedroom and would leave their bedroom door open this had allowed the odor to travel around the home. Service user has now left the home and staff have been able to deep clean the affected area resulting in the odor being eliminated. We have introduced a new weekly walk round with myself and the owners to help identify any area of improvement. 

Please be advised door closer was adjusted by myself on the same day the concerns was raised however it was done once visit had been completed, sign post now in place on both sides of the door to remind staff to keep door closed. 

Positives and good practice

We found during our visit to Breckside Park Residential Home examples of positives and good practice which included but were not limited to:  

• The activities manager is regarded highly by multiple residents and although we did not get to meet them, they seem to be doing their job very well.
• The external garden is large, leafy and private and seems like it would be a nice environment in good weather. The possible plans to utilise the exterior building could add to this environment further.
• The wall menu in the dining room was highly visual and was updated with personalized pictures making it very accessible and dementia friendly