Updated 29 July 2017
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 was 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 11 July 2017 and was unannounced. The inspection team consisted of two adult social care inspectors and an expert by experience with expertise in the care of older people and people living with dementia. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.
At the time of our inspection there were 53 people living in the home. During the inspection we spent time observing care and speaking with people about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with eight people who used the service and four of their relatives and friends who were visiting the home.
We also spoke with the registered manager and eight staff including a qualified nurse, senior care staff, care staff and catering and ancillary staff. We spoke with a healthcare professional who was attending to people on the day of our inspection. This helped us evaluate the quality of interactions that took place between people living in the home and the staff who supported them.
Prior to the inspection visit we gathered information from a number of sources. We looked at the information received about the service from notifications sent to the Care Quality Commission by the registered manager. We also spoke with the local council quality assurance officer who also undertakes periodic visits to the home. We asked the registered provider to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the registered provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. The registered provider returned the PIR within our requested timescale.
We looked at documentation relating to people who used the service, staff and the management of the service. We looked at four people’s written records, including the plans of their care and the systems used to manage their medicines, including the storage and records kept. We looked at three staff files, including recruitment and training information. We looked at the quality assurance systems to check if they were robust and identified areas for improvement