Archived: Clarendon House

Updated 14 March 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 7 and 8 December 2015 and the first day was unannounced.

The inspection was carried out over two days by one adult social care inspector.

Before we visited the home we reviewed the previous inspection reports and notifications held on our records that we had received from the service. We also contacted the local authority quality team to seek their views about the home. They did not raise any concerns about the service.

On this occasion we did not ask the provider to complete a provider information return (PIR) before our visit. A PIR is a document that asks the provider to give us some key information about the service, what the service does well and any improvements they are planning to make.

During the inspection we observed how the staff interacted with people using the service. We spoke with four people who used the service, the domestic on duty, four visitors, the cook, the kitchen assistant one senior health care assistant (SHCA), the visiting district nurse (DN) the deputy manager, the registered manager, the provider and three health care assistants (HCA’s).

We walked around the home and looked in 16 bedrooms. We looked in both the communal sitting rooms, a dining room, the kitchen, the communal toilets and two bathrooms. We reviewed a range of records about people’s care and support which included the care plans and medicine records of three people. We examined the staff training and supervision records for five staff employed at the home, and quality monitoring records such as auditing records about how the home was being managed.

Updated 14 March 2016

This inspection took place on 7 and 8 December 2015. Our visit on the 7 December was unannounced

The service was previously inspected on 11 September 2013 when no breaches of legal requirements were found.

Clarendon House is located in Bramhall near Stockport. The home is registered to provide accommodation and personal care for up to 32 people. Bedrooms are situated on the ground floor and first floor of the home. Access between floors is via a stair lift and passenger lift. 11bedrooms had an en-suite toilet. The building is situated in its own grounds with secure gardens and off road parking. At the time of our inspection 25 people were living at Clarendon House.

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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People who used the service, who we asked, told us that Clarendon House was a safe place to live and felt they were looked after well.

Staff we spoke with understood their role in making sure they safeguarded vulnerable people from harm and had undertaken training in adult safeguarding.

Care plans clearly detailed the areas of support people needed and included associated risk assessments.

People who lived at Clarendon House were supported to live as independently as possible by sufficient numbers of suitably trained staff, who had been appropriately and safely recruited to support and meet people’s individual needs.

Care staff who we spoke with had all received a thorough induction, training and support when they started work at the home and understood their roles and responsibilities, as well as the values and philosophy of the home.

Staff had a clear understanding of the care and support people required and knew how to make sure the care provided met people’s assessed care needs as detailed in the care plans and we saw that people were supported to eat and drink enough to maintain a balanced diet.

The staff training record showed staff had access to a range of appropriate training such as dementia awareness and end of life care and the staff we spoke with confirmed this. They also told us that they felt well supported by the manager and found the management team to be approachable.

Records showed that people had consented to the care and treatment before it was provided. People who we spoke with told us that the staff were caring and we observed good relationships between individual staff and people who used the service.

We saw that care was provided with kindness; staff were respectful when speaking with people and responded promptly when people required assistance. People we saw looked well cared for and comfortable in their surroundings.

People told us they knew who to speak to if they wanted to raise a concern or complaint. A copy of the complaints process was displayed in prominent areas throughout the home. This promoted a positive culture that was open, inclusive and empowering.

To help make sure that people received safe and effective care, systems had been put in place to monitor the quality of service being provided. These systems included regular checks on all aspects of the management of the service.

We saw that the cleaning system in place helped to make sure the home was clean and any offensive odours apparent during our visit were attended to immediately.