Westview Health Care Center: Mental Health Care Gaps - CT
That determination came to light during a February 2025 inspection of the 150 Ware Road nursing home, when federal inspectors examined how Westview handled behavioral health care for its residents. What they found was a facility without any contracted behavioral health service, no therapeutic counseling provider, and a chain of responsibility that ended with a doctor whose specialty is the medicine of aging, not psychiatry.
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See the Derila PillowThe medical director told inspectors he considered his fellowship board certification in geriatrics sufficient qualification to manage mental health medications. He said he manages those medications and orders monitoring for staff to follow through on. He acknowledged, directly, that he does not provide ongoing therapeutic counseling services.
Nobody at Westview did.
The facility's social worker, identified in the report as SW #1, held a BSW and a BA. The medical director said he was aware of those credentials and considered the social worker qualified to make decisions for day-to-day care. SW #1 was also identified as the person responsible for making referrals to outpatient mental health services when needed.
The question inspectors were probing was whether that arrangement was adequate, particularly for residents whose behavioral health needs went beyond reassurance and daily redirection.
The Lead Level II Assessor for Specialized Services for the State of Connecticut answered that question on January 30, 2025. She told inspectors that supportive counseling, the kind that covers reassurance, redirection, and routine mood and behavior issues, can be handled by facility staff. But she drew a clear line. Counseling services that are formally recommended for a resident, she said, should be performed by someone with a master's level of education or higher.
She went further. If a resident experienced a change in symptoms, hallucinations, paranoia, or any increase in the severity of their condition, a new Level II evaluation was required, a formal reassessment by the state authority. That process exists precisely because residents in those situations need more than what a BSW and a geriatrician's medication orders can provide.
The state's own preadmission and screening requirements, cited in the inspection record, place the responsibility for active or specialized behavioral health treatment with the state authority, not the facility. Routine and ongoing rehabilitative needs fall to facility staff, but only after the appropriate identification of those service needs through the PASSR process.
Westview's structure appeared to collapse that distinction. The medical director was managing psychiatric medications based on his geriatric training. The social worker, whose credentials fall below the threshold the state assessor described for formal counseling, was the designated point of contact for behavioral health referrals. There was no contracted outside provider filling the gap between what facility staff could appropriately handle and what residents with serious behavioral health needs actually required.
The inspection tagged the deficiency at a level of minimal harm or potential for actual harm, meaning inspectors found the gap in services had affected some residents but had not yet produced documented serious injury. That designation reflects what was observable at the time of the survey. It does not resolve the question of what residents with hallucinations, paranoia, or worsening psychiatric symptoms received in the months before inspectors arrived, or what they would receive after.
The medical director's position, that his geriatric certification qualifies him to serve as the psychiatric practitioner for an entire nursing home population, went unchallenged inside the facility. SW #1 continued making referral decisions with a bachelor's degree in a role the state's own assessor said requires graduate-level training at minimum.
Westview's residents with behavioral health needs had no contracted counselor, no master's-level clinician on staff, and a doctor who, by his own account, manages their medications but does not provide the counseling their conditions may require.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Westview Health Care Center from 2025-02-03 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: This article is based on inspection data downloaded directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) via Medicare.gov. CMS releases inspection reports in bulk; we publish the findings as documented by state surveyors in the official Form CMS-2567 Statement of Deficiencies.
Plan of correction: The CMS report we receive does not include the facility's plan of correction. Facilities submit plans of correction separately to state survey agencies and those responses may not be reflected in CMS data at the time of publication. The absence of a plan of correction in our data does not mean one was not filed. Readers who want information about corrective steps taken are encouraged to contact the facility directly or their state survey agency.
Corrections may have occurred: Inspection reports reflect conditions observed on the date of the survey. Facilities may have implemented corrections, staffing changes, additional training, or other remediation since the report was issued. We report what CMS provides and encourage readers to seek current information from the facility.
Editorial process: Inspection findings are extracted from CMS source documents and synthesized using AI, reviewed for factual accuracy against the original report by our editorial team.
Corrections: We strive for accuracy in everything we publish. If you believe any fact in this article is incorrect, please contact us with details, and we will review and correct it promptly.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: November 14, 2026 · Our methodology
WESTVIEW HEALTH CARE CENTER in DAYVILLE, CT was cited for violations during a health inspection on February 3, 2025.
He said he manages those medications and orders monitoring for staff to follow through on.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.