Background to this inspection
Updated
20 March 2019
The inspection:
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) 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 Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team:
The inspection was carried out by an adult social care inspector and an inspection manager.
Service and service type:
The service provides care and support to people living in ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared building or site. The accommodation on this site is owner occupied. There are 49 apartments in a gated community, very close to the city centre. There are communal facilities such as lounges, games room and a restaurant. Staff are based on site and someone is available 24 hours a day throughout the year.
People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate the premises and this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support service.
As required, this service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.’
Notice of inspection:
We gave the service one days’ notice of the inspection because we needed to be sure that there was someone available to assist us on the day we inspected. We also needed staff to seek the consent from some of the people using the service to a home visit or phone call from an inspector.
What we did:
Our plan took into account information the provider sent us since the last inspection. We also considered information we had received in regards to the service. We contacted the local authority commissioners and safeguarding team who had no information to share in regards to the service. We used this information to populate our planning tool and plan our inspection.
During the inspection, we spoke with four people living in the service about their experience of care. We also spoke with the registered manager, duty manager and two members of staff.
We looked at four people's care records and a selection of medication administration records (MARs). We looked at other records including quality monitoring records, recruitment and training records, two staff files, and records of checks carried out on the premises and equipment.
Updated
20 March 2019
About the service:
Bowling Green Court (Chester) Limited is an Extra Care Housing Scheme that was providing personal care to five adults at the time of the inspection.
People’s experience of using this service:
The provider had made a number of positive improvements to the service since our last inspection.
A review had been undertaken of medicines management and improvements made. This ensured that people received their medicines safely and as prescribed.
Steps had been taken to improve the governance of the service with better checks and audits being in place to determine the quality of the care.
The provider and registered manager had made improvements to achieve compliance with the regulations and to ensure that they provided a safe and reliable service.
People who used the service were positive about the impact it had on their lives: enabling them to remain as independent as possible within their own homes. They said that staff were kind, considerate and competent.
There was a range of activities on offer and staff encouraged people to participate in things of interest to them
Clear care records ensured that staff had the information they needed to provide a personal and effective service to people. A regular review of people’s care was undertaken to ensure all of their support needs were met in line with the person’s wishes.
The registered manager worked in partnership with health and care professionals and the local community to ensure support was sufficient and coordinated.
Staff received a robust induction, on-going training and support so that they could be effective in their roles.
The service met the characteristics for a rating of ‘good’ in all of the key questions and therefore our overall rating for the service has improved to ‘good’.
More information is in our full report.
Rating at last inspection:
At our last inspection, the service was rated as ‘requires improvement’ overall. Our last report was published on the 22 March 2018.
Why we inspected:
All services rated “requires improvement” are re-inspected within one year of our last inspection. This inspection was part of our scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received.
Following the last inspection, we asked the provider to complete an action plan to identify the action they intended to take to ensure the service met all of its legal requirements and to improve the key questions Safe and Well Led to at least a rating of good. This inspection checked whether they had made the required improvements.
Follow up:
We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk