A STRUGGLING York care home has made progress, but still requires improvement, according to inspectors.

South Park Care Home in Gale Lane, Acomb was placed in special measures following a previous Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection last August, which branded it inadequate.

The home, which cares for up to 80 older people, including those with mental health and dementia needs, then received an unannounced inspection on January 13 and 14.

August's inspection saw South Park rated inadequate overall as well as under the safe, effective and well-led headings, but its caring and responsiveness required improvement - one classification better.

The report into the January inspection, published last week, marked the home as requires improvement overall and in all five categories, representing a better performance.

After the August inspection, South Park was asked to make improvements under six regulations including staffing, safety, meeting nutritional and hydration needs and good governance.

The January report's summary states: "These actions have now been completed."

A new manager was appointed in November and had applied to be a registered manager with the CQC.

The summary highlights a number of improvements made at South Park, with staffing levels, administering medicine, hygiene, dining, communication, building refurbishments and quality assurance all mentioned.

It stated: "People told us that they felt safe living at the home. We found that staff had a good knowledge of how to keep people safe from harm and staff had been employed following robust recruitment and selection processes."

The summary added: "Sufficient permanent staff had been recruited since our last inspection to ensure the use of agency staff had been reduced to a minimum.

"Staff did not appear rushed on the two days of our inspection and there was a good atmosphere in the service."

It also stated: "We observed a number of positive interactions between the staff and people they were caring for.

"We were told by people and relatives that oral hygiene care, pressure care and contact with external health care professionals was much better."

Among the concerns noted were that "nursing staff continued to be interrupted by other staff and visiting professionals during the medicine rounds".

Staff also said they still had problems accessing the online training courses, while were uncertain where to find information requested.

A statement from South Park's owners Four Seasons Health Care said: "The CQC inspectors acknowledged the improvements that had been made against each of their core criteria of the service being safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

"They explained that they have not revised the ratings to “good”, simply because they want to see a longer term track record of the good practice.

"Inspectors said they received positive feedback from residents, relatives and staff."