A troubled care home where a dementia patient became stuck in a locked cupboard for two hours is set to be bought by Southwark Council.
Tower Bridge Care Centre in Bermondsey has been rated as ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ in its last three inspections by social care watchdog the CQC. In 2022, the Local Government Ombudsman awarded the daughter of a woman who stayed there £1,300 in compensation after her mum became stuck in a cupboard at the home on Aberdour Street.
Plans set to be rubber stamped at a Southwark Council meeting next Tuesday (February 6), would see the local authority buy the care home building from its current owner healthcare company HC-One. The council would then find a new company to take over the running of the home from October.
Tower Bridge Care Centre is Southwark’s largest nursing home with space for 128 residents. As of April last year, there were 112 people living at the home. A CQC report published in July 2023 following an inspection of the home said staff were managing residents’ medicines in an unsafe way, a problem which had also been noted when the home was inspected previously.
The report said: “At our last inspection we found there were significant and widespread issues with the records of administration as records were not reliably accounting for the medicines people had been given.
“At this inspection we found although records were more reliable and usually tallied with the physical stock of medicines available, there was one example of a medicated cream that staff had signed for as administered, which in fact, had not been administered.”
Councillor Evelyn Akoto, Labour’s cabinet member for health, said the council’s decision to buy Tower Bridge Care Centre was ‘good news’ for both residents and staff at the home.
She said: “By stepping in, we are protecting much-needed nursing home beds and local jobs in our borough. Residents will stay close to family and friends, which is so important. We will continue to work closely with HC-One to ensure a smooth handover in due course.”
Stephen Butterworth, chief operations officer at HC-One, said: “We believe that Tower Bridge Care Home will have a bright future under the tenure of Southwark Council who will enable the home to flourish. We are grateful for the council’s support to date, and we look forward to working with them over the coming months to support a successful transition.”