Archived: Hatherleigh

Updated 29 January 2016

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.

This inspection took place on 21, 23 and 29 December 2015. The first two visits were unannounced.

The inspection team consisted of 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; in this case the person was a member of Age UK.

Before the inspection the we asked the provider to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). 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. Before our inspection, we reviewed the information in the PIR along with information we held about the home, which included incident notifications they had sent us. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to tell us about by law.

A number of people living at the service were unable to communicate their experience of living at the home in detail as they were living with dementia. We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a specific way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people, who could not comment directly on their experience.

We spoke to 14 people who lived in Hatherleigh Nursing Home, five people’s visitors, 11 staff members, the deputy and registered managers and the organisation’s training and quality assurance manager. We looked at four people’s care records, daily handover information about people’s needs and medicines administration records (MARs).

We looked at three staff recruitment records, the records of staff meetings and at staff training arrangements. We also looked at the staffing rota, a range of quality monitoring information such as survey results and received information from four community professionals about the service.

Updated 29 January 2016

This inspection took place on 21, 23 and 29 December 2015. The first two visits were unannounced.

Hatherleigh provides personal and nursing care to a maximum of 53 people in the rural community. The home has one unit providing care for people with dementia and one unit, over two floors, providing general nursing care. There were 50 people resident at the time of this inspection.

Our inspection in December 2014 found six breaches of the regulations. These related to care and welfare, staffing, medicine management, safeguarding people from abuse, consent and quality monitoring. The provider sent us a comprehensive action plan. We inspected the service again in December 2015, specifically to check whether people’s care and welfare needs were being met, and found that they were.

The home is required to have a registered manager. 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 associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Medicine management was well organised and there were checks in place to make sure people’s medicines were provided in a safe way.

People’s needs were met by sufficient numbers of staff, who were recruited following checks on their background and suitability to work in a care home environment. Staff received training, supervision and support in their roles.

The premises was well maintained and upgrading improvements had increased people’s comfort.

Risk to individuals was assessed and any identified risk was managed for their safety.

Staff had a good understanding of how to protect people from abuse and respond should they had any concerns. People’s legal rights were upheld.

There was a varied menu and people’s dietary needs were met. One said, “Food is quite nice. I get enough to eat, it is tasty and well cooked”.

Health care needs were met through consultation with community professionals and support to attend hospital and other health care visits.

People received kind and compassionate care. One person said, “Nothing is too much trouble for them. I am very lucky.” Staff engaged with people in a respectful way, promoting their dignity.

People received care which was individual to them, taking into account their needs, preferences and wishes. There were regular activities for people should they wish to be involved and the home environment had benefitted from adaptations, such as raised vegetable beds and posters to trigger memories from people’s past.

Complaints were used as a way to improve the service. Where necessary staff had received additional training and an apology had been given where things could have been done better.

There were comprehensive systems in place to ensure the service was well run, such as audits, staff meetings, and consulting with people about how the home is run.