CARE services at an Orford retirement village have been given a clean bill of health a year after the provider was ordered to improve.

Ryfields Retirement Village has been rated as good by the Care Quality Commission following an announced inspection by the CQC in September.

The CQC had ordered the care service at Ryfields to improve after a previous visit by inspectors in May 2016 found a number of errors in dispensing medicines and failures in reporting safeguarding incidents, as well as breaches of health and social care regulations.

But during the re-inspection, the healthcare regulator found that staff at the Arena Gardens retirement village were ‘passionate about their roles and demonstrated a commitment to the ongoing development of the service’.

‘Changes had been made’ to improve the management of medicines while residents were ‘treated with dignity and respect and encouraged to maintain their independence’.

Registered service manager Sarah Battersby said: “We are really pleased to have this external recognition that the service we deliver is of a good quality.

“However, we are by no means complacent and we intend to keep finding ways to improve the quality of the care and support that we deliver for the residents in the village who deserve the very best we can offer.”

Charity Warrington Community Living took over support services at Ryfields six months before the 2016 CQC inspection and personal care for 52 people with a ‘broad spectrum of needs’.

Chief executive Michael Sheppard added: “It is to the real credit of the hardworking team at Ryfields that they have in just over a year been able to make the level of improvement that the Care Quality Commission have recognised in their report to a service that we inherited with so many issues from the previous provider.

“We are very proud of them.”