27 September 2012
During a themed inspection looking at Dignity and Nutrition
The inspection team was led by a CQC inspector joined by an "expert by experience" who has had experience of using services and who can provide that perspective and an acting professional.
We spoke with 11 people using the service; however the majority of these people had complex needs which meant they were unable to tell us their experiences. Therefore 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 talk with us. The SOFI tool allowed us to spend time watching what was going on in a service and helped us to record how people spent their time, the type of support they received and whether they had positive experiences.
Four people told us that they were generally happy with the care and support they received. One person commented, 'I like it here'. One person said, 'I'm happy as long as I can stay in my room'. However, one person commented, 'There's nothing to do here'. One person told us that they felt the staff treated them well, commenting, 'I can't fault them'. They also told us,'The food is OK, there is plenty of it' and 'We always have a choice'.
We found that the service currently had no registered manager in place. On the day of our visit we met with the registered managers from two other local authority homes. They had been asked to oversee the management of the home and to assess where improvements were needed. They were being supported by three senior team leaders. We saw that the attitude of the staff was positive and caring. It was clear from our discussions with people using the service and our observations that staff understood the needs of the people in their care and showed genuine affection towards them. However, we observed that there was a minimal staff presence in each of the four units. This meant that people had to wait for care and support from staff, particularly at meal times. We also observed that there was minimal day to day activity or stimulation in place for people using the service.