Archived: The Grove Care Home

Updated 14 May 2015

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

The first day of this inspection took place on 19 February 2015 and was unannounced. We returned to the service to continue out inspection on 2 March 2015. This was to meet with the acting manager, the operations manager and the nominated individual. None of these people were available at the time of our first visit.

The inspection was carried out by two adult social care inspectors and an expert by experience.

An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. The expert by experience on this occasion had experience in caring for elderly people, particularly those living with dementia.

Prior to this inspection we looked at all the information we hold about The Grove Care Home. This included the notifications of events such as accidents and incidents sent to us by the home and reports from local authority contracts visits including infection control. We had sent a provider information return (PIR) to the provider and this was returned to us within the timescale requested. This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

During our first visit we spoke with eight people who lived at the home, one person visiting their relative and five members of staff. On our second visit we spoke with the manager, the senior operations manager and the nominated individual. We also spoke with the two people visiting their relative. We looked around the home, observed practice and looked at records. This included four people’s care records, three staff recruitment records and records relating to the management of the service.

Updated 14 May 2015

This inspection took place on 19 February 2015 and was unannounced. We continued the inspection on 2 March 2015 to look at documents relating to assessment and monitoring of service provision. This visit was arranged with the nominated individual at their earliest availability following the first visit. When we last inspected The Grove Care Home in April 2014 we found the home was failing to meet the standards required in all of the regulations we assessed. We told the provider that improvements must be made.

When we inspected the service on 8 April 2014 we found the registered provider was not meeting the regulations relating to respecting and involving people who use services, cleanliness and infection control, staffing, assessing and monitoring the quality of service provision and records. We asked the registered provider to make improvements. On this visit we checked to see if improvements had been made.

The Grove Care Home is registered to provide residential care for up to 28 older people. Bedrooms are situated on both the ground and first floor with communal lounges and dining room on the ground floor. There were 15 people living at the home at the time of our inspection.

A new manager has been in position since October 2014. This person has registered manager status in another of the provider’s services and is currently applying to the Care Quality Commission to transfer this status to The Grove. 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 2008 and the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

We found that the new manager had taken sufficient action to meet with most of the compliance actions set as a result of our inspection in April 2014. Staffing arrangements were still in need of improvement.

People told us they felt safe and staff knew how to maintain people’s safety although some had not had the required training. People told us they sometimes had to wait for support as staff were very busy and although attentive, were not always available to them.

The home was generally clean although adequate hand washing facilities were not always in place.

Staff training was in need of updating particularly in relation to the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). We saw that training had been arranged in this and other areas. Systems for supporting staff were in place and although some slippage had occurred, the new manager was addressing this.

Staff treated people with kindness and respect. People who lived at the home and their relatives told us the staff were very caring.

Staff respected people’s right to make choices and knew how to support people in this. People received a nutritious diet and found the food enjoyable.

Care planning had improved since our last inspection and plans were in place for further development.

Activities were provided but this was not at a level which would meet the needs of all the people living at the home.

Processes were in place for auditing the quality of service provision. The new manager was in the process of bringing these up to date.

We found one breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.