Archived: Chalfont Court

Updated 17 September 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 the 2 August 2016 and was unannounced.

The inspection team consisted of one inspector from the Care Quality Commission and an expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who had been in a care home environment.

Before the inspection, the provider completed 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. We also reviewed information we held about the service, including the notifications they had sent us. A notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send to us.

During the inspection we spoke with the registered manager, regional manager, deputy manager, eight care staff, 11 visitors, a visiting healthcare professional and nine people who use the service. We looked at eight care records, three recruitment files and all the training records for staff employed by the service. We also reviewed information on how the provider managed complaints, how they assessed and monitored the quality of the service, and reviewed Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) applications and safeguarding alerts for the home.

Updated 17 September 2016

We carried out an unannounced inspection on 2 August 2016.

Chalfont Court is registered to provide accommodation and nursing care for up to 46 people, some of whom may have dementia.

The service had 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.

There were risk assessments in place that gave guidance to staff on how risks to people could be minimised and how to safeguard people from the risk of possible harm. People’s medicines had been managed safely.

The provider had effective recruitment processes in place and there were sufficient staff to support people safely. Staff understood their roles and responsibilities and would seek people’s consent before they provided any care or support. Staff received supervision and support, and had been trained to meet people’s individual needs.

People were supported by caring and respectful staff who they felt knew them well. Staff also felt that they knew the people they supported well. Relatives we spoke with described the staff as very good and caring. We observed that staff were not always able to support people in a timely manner and focused on the task at hand rather than the person. This had resulted in a person becoming distressed during our inspection.

People’s needs had been assessed, and care plans took account of their individual needs, preferences, and choices. The service supported people with health care visits such as GP appointments, optician appointments, chiropodists and hospital visits.

The provider had a formal process for handling complaints and concerns. They encouraged feedback from people and acted on the comments received to continually improve the quality of the service. The provider also had effective quality monitoring processes in place to ensure that they were meeting the required standards of care.

We found the provider was in breach of a regulation of the Health and Social Care Act (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.