20 July 2016
During a routine inspection
Geraint House is a residential home which provides care to people with mental health needs. It is registered to provide care for up to 11 people. At the time of our inspection there were 11 people living at the home.
There was a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The registered manager responsible for nursing was managing the service at the time of the inspection.
People using the service we spoke with said they thought the home was safe. Staff had been trained in safeguarding (protecting people from abuse) and understood their responsibilities in this area.
People's risk assessments provided staff with information of how to support people safely.
People using the service told us they thought medicines were given safely and on time.
Staff were not always subject to robust character checks to ensure they were appropriate to work with the people who used the service.
Staff had been trained to ensure they had the skills and knowledge to meet people's needs though more training was needed with regard to people's health conditions.
Staff generally understood their main responsibility under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) to allow, as much as possible, people to have an effective choice about how they lived their lives.
People had plenty to eat and drink and everyone told us they liked the food served.
People's health care needs had been protected by referrals to health care professionals when necessary.
People told us they liked the staff and got on well with them, and we saw many examples of staff working with people in a friendly and caring way.
People and their representatives were involved in making decisions about their care, treatment and support.
Care plans were individual to the people using the service and usually covered their health and social care needs, though more detail was needed to ensure specific health advice was discussed with people and included in care plans.
There were sufficient numbers of staff to ensure that people's needs were responded to in good time and on-call arrangements in place if more staff were needed.
Activities were organised to provide stimulation for people and they could take part in activities in the community if they chose.
People told us they would tell staff if they had any concerns and were confident they would be followed up to meet their needs.
People, staff and a healthcare professional we spoke with were satisfied with how the home was run by the registered manager.
Management carried out audits and checks to ensure the home was running properly to meet people's needs, though not all essential systems had been audited.