A nursing home near Newcastle has been accused of drugging residents without their knowledge, in breach of privacy and dignity accreditation guidelines.

Key points: Audit report on Bayside Aged Care identified privacy and dignity breaches

Audit report on Bayside Aged Care identified privacy and dignity breaches Facility owner Allity says it has taken steps to address issues raised

Facility owner Allity says it has taken steps to address issues raised Anglican Care says aged care royal commission has forced oprators ro rethink care delivery

The Federal Department of Health has issued the Bayside Aged Care facility at Bonnells Bay with a non-compliance notice, after it failed one in five industry benchmarks.

They included not meeting protocols for health and personal care, regulatory compliance, education and staff development, clinical care, behavioural management and infection control.

An audit report by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, that prompted the non-compliance notice also found that there were privacy and dignity breaches.

That finding related to residents being drugged without their consent.

"Consumers' right to dignified and respectful care is not recognised and respected," the audit report found.

"Staff practices do not demonstrate consumers receive dignified care.

"Incidents of disrespectful interactions between staff and consumers have not been identified and managed effectively.

"The use of psychotropic medication and conducting care tasks without consumers' consent does not demonstrate respectful care," the audit report found.

The audit report for Bayside also found that incident-reporting in relation to aggressive behaviour does not occur and that there was no effective infection control program in place.

Protocols for safely handling chemotherapy drugs were also allegedly not met.

Allity says it acted swiftly to address concerns

Chief Operating Officer Glen Hurley of Allity, which owns Bayside Aged Care, said on receipt of the audit report, Allity took immediate steps to address the commission's concerns.

Bayside Aged Care at Bonnells Bay is addressing issues raised in an audit. ( ABC News: David Maguire )

"As a priority, Allity conducted its own investigation and put actions in place to ensure there was no risk to the health or safety of any resident," Mr Hurley said.

"Every day, our 122 staff and managers seek to provide the highest standards of care to our 119 residents at Bayside Aged Care.

"Still, we acknowledge there are areas in which we can improve, and we appreciate the opportunity to swiftly address the specific issues raised by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission.

"We are working with our residents, their families, our staff and the Department of Health to make sure we deliver improvements we can be proud of and offer a better service to the Bonnells Bay community."

The Bayside home is the same facility at the centre of an ABC investigation into allegations it ignored the sexual assault of a resident — a claim it rejected.

The Bayside Aged Care facility has until December 2 to make improvements.

Second home found non-compliant over untrained staff and antibiotic misuse

Anglican Care's Carey Bay nursing home, about 20 minutes away from the Bayside Aged Care facility at Bonnells Bay, has also been given a non-compliance notice by the Federal Department of Health.

An audit report by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission highlighted a number of areas of concern at the Carey Bay home.

The facility was found to be deficient in terms of personal and clinical care and lacked suitable furniture and equipment.

Complaints handling was also criticised, as was the home's use of antibiotics.

The audit report into the Anglican Care home found:

"Policy and procedure to promote appropriate antibiotic prescribing and to reduce the risk of increasing resistance to antibiotics, has not yet been finalised and implemented." "Staff lack understanding of antimicrobial stewardship and their role and responsibilities in relation to this."

Anglican Care responds

Anglican Care's CEO Colin Osborne said his staff were working quickly to address any concerns.

"We've put together an action plan which we have provided to both the commission and the Department of Health and we are working towards that," Mr Osborne said.

"There is a new microbiological stewardship that has been implemented and we have been working on the implementation of that across all of our homes quite diligently."

In addition, the audit found that resident accidents were not reported promptly and the number and mix of staff members did not enable the delivery and management of safe and quality care.

Mr Osborne said the home had a stellar history in terms of care delivery and compliance issues were being rectified.

"I mean if you look at the history of Carey Bay it has actually never had a blemish on its accreditation in its past history," Mr Osborne said

He said several issues related to a lack of paperwork, not the delivery of care.

"I think some of the things that have come up in this audit relate not necessarily to deterioration of services but the fact that we probably haven't had some of the documentary evidence of what we have been doing to support compliance with the standards," Mr Osborne said.

"There's a number of issues which are documentation-based as opposed to practice-based.

"That is not to say that there aren't some real issues that need to be addressed, there are, and we are not backing away from that."

Aged care royal commission having impact

The non-compliance notices for both homes come at a time when the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety is continuing to hold hearings around Australia.

It is due to hold a community forum in Newcastle on November 27.

Mr Osborne said the royal commission had forced every operator to rethink their delivery of care.

"I think what we are seeing here is an interpretation by the accreditors — quite rightly — in accordance with the new standards is if you don't get 100 per cent score anything less than 100 per cent is a fail," he said.

"It is a very very high bar that has been set and providers are finding it very very difficult, increasingly difficult to strike that level of compliance."

Anglican Care has until February next year to address issues of non-compliance at its Carey Bay home.