AN Oldham nursing home has said it has made improvements and addressed concerns over medicine management following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

St George's Care Centre was rated as "requires improvement" by inspectors.

The home, on Northgate Lane, Moorside, was praised as "good" in three areas – effectiveness, care and responsiveness – however inspectors raised issues in other areas.

In their report, inspectors said: "We found that overall the service had made considerable improvements since our last two previous inspections.

"However, we found that medicines were not always managed safely and there was therefore a continued breach of Regulation 12 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008."

Inspectors found that medicines were not always stored at the correct temperature and discovered eyedrops for two residents which were past their recommended expiry date.

The report stated that one person had the drops administered for five days after the recommended expiry date and the issue was raised with the nurse on duty.

The report added: "When people received their medicines covertly (hidden in food or drink) there was no record of any input from a pharmacist to advise the home how to disguise each medicine without reducing its effectiveness."

Care Centre Manager Cheryl Newsome said that the medicine storage have already been rectified and audits are now in place.

She said: "We are disappointed to have been rated as requires improvement as there has been a lot of improvements.

"We are happy to have been rated as good in three areas, particularly for care, as that is very important to us.

"We let ourselves down with the breach of the Health and Social Care act but this has now been addressed.

"I am very hopeful that we will be rated good by inspectors in our next inspection."

Inspectors also described the home as "clean, well-maintained and well-decorated" and residents were provided with a good choice of food.

The report added: "We observed kind and caring interactions between staff and people who used the service.

"Care plans, which were reviewed regularly, were details and reflected the needs of each individuals."