Queensland’s 24 worst aged care providers exposed in new ratings

Residents were left in ‘restrictive’ chairs for hours and made to wait too long for toilet breaks at two of Queensland’s worst aged care facilities requiring ‘significant’ improvement.

Saint Nicholas Nursing Home at Highgate Hill was recently sanctioned for compliance issues and given a one star rating by the federal government. Photo: Steve Pohlner

Residents had access to unprescribed medication, were left in “restrictive” chairs for hours and made to wait too long for toilet breaks at two now-sanctioned Queensland aged care providers, damning findings have revealed.

The Federal Department of Health and Aged Care this week released its new star ratings system for residential aged care facilities which exposed the centres requiring major improvement.

An inner city Brisbane facility and a second in the state’s far north were found to have “serious” compliance breaches and were given one star ratings meaning they could lose their care status.

Saint Nicholas Aged Care at Highgate Hill was found to have two compliance issues with one sanction imposed and a notice of requirement to agree placed on it after an audit by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner.

More than 20 others including centres in Woodlands Aged Care at Newmarket, Esida and TriCare at Mount Gravatt and TriCare Annerley were given two star ratings requiring immediate improvement.

Centres in Far North Queensland given two star ratings included Kubirri Residential Care at Mossman, Bluehaven Aged Care at Ingham and BlueCare Mareeba.

On the Gold Coast, three centres were handed two star ratings including Churches of Christ Golden Age at Southport, Lions Haven For The Aged at Hope Island and TriCare Pimpama.

Three centres in the Sunshine Coast region were told to improve including BlueCare facilities at Warana, Bli Bli and Gympie.

The audit prior to the star ratings found up to nine Saint Nicholas residents had been placed in upright chairs with tray tables that restricted movement.

“Staff were observed not acknowledging or addressing the consumers who were calling out for assistance for several hours, and thereby were impacting on other consumers,” the commissioner’s report read.

The audit also identified three examples were residents’ health and wellbeing was at risk in relation to “falls, restrictive practice, behaviours or suicidal risk”.

Following the audit, the commission imposed a sanction on Saint Nicholas which instructed it to fix any outstanding issues to protect the residents.

Saint Nicholas was approached for comment.

Warrina Innisfail was also given a one-star rating after three compliance issues were found in a commissioner audit.

The audit found one man who died during a two-week respite had been observed ingesting unprescribed medication, empty packets were also found him his room.

“Administration of medication processes were identified as being unsafe as a medication trolley was left unattended and it was reported the door to the medication room was left unlocked,” the audit read.

The audit stated consumers had reported waiting long periods for toileting assistance and delays in the delivery of medication results which left them anxious or suffering from tremors.

Saint Nicholas Nursing Home at Highgate Hill was recently sanctioned for compliance issues and given a one star rating by the federal government. Photo: Steve Pohlner.

Both one-star facilities received notice of requirements to agree or face the risk of losing the approval to provide services if action is not taken.

Warrina Innisfail president Maria Vasicek said the centre acknowledged the commission’s audit and that it was committed to creating a “safe and positive” environment for residents and their representatives.

“We have engaged advisers to assist us improve and rectify the areas identified in the audit,” Ms Vasicek said in a statement.

“This work will include additional training for our people, regular progress reports, improvement to our documentation and a review of activities and suppliers to ensure residents’ needs are met, to the highest possible standard.”

Five centres including Bowder Care Centre at Nambour, Anglicare SQ St Martin’s Nursing Home at Taigum, Brighton Health Campus at Brighton, Milton House at Miles and Leslie Place Aged Persons Hostel at Killarney were all given five star ratings.

The star ratings system was an election promise by the new federal government designed to make aged care more transparent.