The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has apologised after failing to publish a report for a care home - which showed it was not meeting a number of key standards - until nine months after it was inspected.

Grantley Court Nursing Home, in York Road, Sutton, was shut down by the social care watchdog the CQC last month after it identified "significant failings in safety and quality of care".

Following the closure, Linda Cackett, from Epsom, contacted this newspaper with regards to her 89-year-old mother Edna Slann.

She was moved into the home last June by Surrey County Council (SCC) social services, where she stayed until September.

Ms Cackett said that, while there, her mother contracted a severe foot infection which has now left her on end-of-life care.

She said she did not understand why SCC placed her mother in Grantley Court when shortcomings had already been identified during an inspection at the home by the CQC last January.

LAST MONTH: Closure of second care home owned by couple who ran 'failing' Merok Park

Informed this week about the apology from the CQC for failing to publish the report sooner, Ms Cackett said she was "disgusted" and has written to Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, about the severe failings in the system.

SCC said it was not aware of the January inspection when they placed Mrs Slann at Grantley Court because the report of it was not published on the CQC website until September.

On the CQC’s website, the date on the inspection on this report is stated as "13 January 2014" and the date of publication is given as "April 2014".

But a link to access the full report states "Inspection report published 18 September 2014".

This week, the CQC admitted the report should have been published earlier and that it made an "administrative error".

Sally Warren, deputy chief inspector of adult social care in London, said: "Following the inspection of Grantley Court Nursing Home in January 2014, the provider was sent the report in March.

"This very clearly set out where improvements were required - and advised him that he was breaching regulations governing the running of care services in a number of areas.

"Due to an administrative error, the report did not publish on the CQC website until September 2014.

"We apologise for this error, as we know how important our reports - alongside other sources of information such as local authority monitoring visits - are to stakeholders, residents, and their families."

But a CQC spokeswoman said last month that it was "highly unlikely" that the first SCC would have heard of the concerns raised last January were when the report was published on its website.

She said: "Where we identify concerns about a place we would talk about this with the local authority as it is the lead authority on safeguarding. They would need to know about it.

"It should also be monitoring homes with visits."

Your Local Guardian:

The CQC website shows that its inspection of Grantley Court Nursing Home was conducted last January, but the report was only published online in September 

Ms Cackett said she was told by an individual at the CQC that "we rely on the local authority to look at the website" when it comes to inspection reports.

She added: "They don’t communicate with the local authority.

"Had they communicated the January inspection findings to SCC I would have hoped that SCC wouldn’t have put my mother there."

Ms Cackett said Sutton police are now investigating the care her mother received at Grantley Court and SCC's adult social care team called a meeting at the end of last month to discuss the matter.

"I cannot believe SCC placed my mother at Grantley Court without first checking the home was suitable," she added.

"Although they say it is not a funding issue, I strongly believe it is.

"Although I was advised that the only bed that was available for my mother was at Grantley, this was not strictly true.

"I have since found out, there was in actual, fact beds available at nursing homes in Epsom, but because of their charges, SCC felt it was unacceptable to place my mother out of borough purely because Grantley was the only home that fell within their budgets."

A SCC spokesman denied that this was the case.

He said: Grantley Court was the only home of the right type that had a space at that point.  

"It wasn't because it was the cheapest."

Ms Cackett said she has met with Epsom and Ewell’s MP Chris Grayling and that she has received an email back from the office of Jeremy Hunt saying that the Health Secretary would like to respond to her personally.

She added: "I only hope more people become aware of the severe failings in the care system."

"Something needs to be changed. This can’t carry on.

"The system isn’t working. I’m sure this isn’t the first case and it won’t be the last."

Have you been affected by circumstances at a care home?  

Contact Hardeep Matharu by emailing hmatharu@london.newsquest.co.uk, call 020 8722 6346 or tweet @Hardeep_Matharu.