THE owner of a care home criticised by regulators say rising fi- nancial pressures may threaten its future.

Rose Bell care home in Cross Road, Witham, was told it “requires improvement” by Care Quality Commission inspectors, who raised concerns that not all staff had received regular training.

Gyan Ludhor, director of Agl Care, which owns the home, said increasing costs including the living wage coupled with six-year a freeze in payments by Essex County Council to house residents meant it was a struggle to afford training.

He said: “Staff holidays have gone up, we have to pay the living wage and contribute to their pension schemes. There are lots of things that have come in which cost money.

“That’s no excuse but at some point if I think the business is not viable I will close it down.

“Essex County Council have not given us an increase in anything since 2010, so there are constraints on the service all round. It’s being addressed but we have not been able to increase our fees in six years.”

The National Living Wage for anyone over 25 is now £7.20 an hour following a 50p rise. Failure to pay could lead to a £20,000 fine and a ban from being a company director.

Inspectors found some staff had not completed training around managing challenging behaviour, fire safety, manual handling, infection control and hand hygiene.

Inspectors said care records lacked nutritional assessments for people who were diabetic, the leadership of the service could be more proactive, medicines had not always been audited and accidents and incidents were not reviewed to see where areas of risk could be reduced.

Two regulations were broken in relation to staffing and nutritional and hydration needs.

Mr Ludhor said: “I would have liked the report to be very good everywhere. One of the problems was for documentation and a document wasn’t made readily available for the inspector.

“I have been assured by the manager that it was there at the time.

“We have already had a couple of training sessions and by August we will be up to date.”

An Essex County Council spokesman said it carried out “best value assessments” and increased funding where necessary.

He said: “CQC requires residential homes to provide appropriate training to its staff.

“The funding for this and the components of living wage, pensions etc are contained within the placement price which are made under a contractual arrangement.

“This arrangement means that prices are agreed and are specific to the needs of each resident receiving care, meaning some are higher than others depending on the amount and type of care needed.”