A Merseyside care home where residents’ human rights were not always protected has blamed Brexit and austerity on being strained and understaffed.

Mariners Park Care Home in Wallasey has been downgraded from “Good'” to “Requires Improvement” after a watchdog identified a host of problems during a surprise inspection.

Inspectors said the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) was not always followed to protect vulnerable people’s human rights, and observed that staff were not always visible in and around the home.

A concerning report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said residents complained of being left in bed until midday, having to “bawl and shout” for help or waiting an hour for assistance to use the toilet because of staff shortages.

But managers of the Royden Avenue facility said that while they accept the findings, they have struggled to recruit against a backdrop of cuts to social services and Brexit.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Services, Welfare Services Manager Mr Mick Howarth said the sector was “in crisis” with many aspects outside of the control of individual care homes.

He said: “Although our Care Home was fully staffed at the time of the inspection, there is no doubt that recruitment is increasingly problematic.

“There are 40,000 nursing vacancies in the NHS and securing such staff to work in Care Homes is increasingly challenging, often forcing managers to rely on agency staff – which is both more expensive and does not provide the continuity of care that is needed.

“Similarly recruiting care staff has become difficult. Such work is challenging but rewarding, but inevitably requires significant levels of unsocial hours to provide the 24/7 staffing care homes rely on.

“The Brexit uncertainties have reduced the numbers of potential recruits making the overall pool of staff who are available smaller and hence recruitment is now reaching crisis point.”

There were 29 residents at Mariners Park Care home at the time of the inspection.

Mr Howarth said they were being looked after by nine members of staff working in the morning, eight in the afternoon and four in the night.

The care home manager said this was “significantly above” the level of Care Hours funded by Wirral Council under the Wirral Social Services model.

Mariners Park are funded to provide 603 care hours per week by the local authority, but at the time of the inspection had been providing 886 – an excess of 283 hours per a week

Mr Howarth explained excess hours were subsidised by the care home’s charity, the Nautilus Welfare Fund, who last year spent an eye-watering £360,000 funding the gap between the Local Authority contribution and the actual cost of care.

He said: “It is a considerable cause of frustration that the funding from Local Authorities for Care Homes lags significantly behind the true cost of providing the level of care residents need.

“This “top up” by the Charity represents a subsidy of £281 per week for a residential level client and some £250/week for a Nursing resident. This situation, the growing gap between the funding and cost of providing care in Care Homes, is part of the growing crisis in social care which needs to be urgently addressed.

“This all paints a picture of a sector in crisis, with many aspects outside of the control of individual Care Homes.”

“Adequate funding to pay decent wages to recruit and retain staff and employ sufficient skilled staff to meet residents needs is essential to put the Care Sector on a sustainable footing to deliver the care our older people need and deserve.”

Other failings identified by the CQC included safeguarding issues relating to the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) – a statue in place to protect those who lack the ability to make their own decisions about their care and treatment.

Inspectors said the MCA was not always followed to protect people’s human rights, with staff failing to get proper consent to administer medicine covertly, use bed rails and implement deprivation of liberty safeguards.

The report was also critical of the “poor” care planning for people with dementia and said there was “little evidence” that people’s end of life wishes were discussed and properly planned for.

Mr Howarth said management were “disappointed” by the report but had accepted the findings and already put plans in place to make improvements, including recruiting extra staff.

He said: “Since the inspection, to respond the CQC concerns, we have added a care worker to our afternoon shift, so in a typical week we now have 928 care hours available, over 300 hours/ week more than the local authority funding model is based on.

“Mariners’ Park Care Home is determined to get this right to ensure we can deliver responsive care to our residents and regain our “Good” rating . The Care home has produced an Action Plan to address the CQC issues and this has been accepted by the Regulator as the way forward”.