Thornton House Home for Older People

Updated 19 February 2022

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.

As part of CQC’s response to care homes with outbreaks of COVID-19, we are conducting reviews to ensure that the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practice is safe and that services are compliant with IPC measures. This was a targeted inspection looking at the IPC practices the provider has in place. We also asked the provider about any staffing pressures the service was experiencing and whether this was having an impact on the service.

This inspection took place on 07 February 2022 and was announced. We gave the service 3 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was so we could be sure the registered manager was available.

Updated 19 February 2022

About the service

Thornton House Home for Older People is a residential care home providing personal care to 31 people at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to 45 people across four separate units providing residential and rehabilitation support. They also provided care and support to people living with dementia.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

Some care plans lacked some information related to people's individual needs and behaviours. The auditing processes in place did not identify the concerns we found around the management of risk and infection prevention. Not all staff followed good practice guidance and company policy, as they travelled to and from work in their uniforms, rather than getting changed when at the care home. People raised concerns related the staff response times when they pressed their call bells. We could not fully investigate this as the call bell system on site did not record staff response times.

The management of medicines was not always safe. We have made a recommendation about the management of some medicines. The registered manager did not have oversight of the training records of all staff working at the home. We have made a recommendation about this.

The management team worked with a variety of agencies to ensure people's health and social needs were met. Onsite face to face visits by families had commenced to promote people's wellbeing. Staff were knowledgeable about how to safeguard people from abuse. Staff had safe recruitment checks before providing care.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

The last rated inspection for this service was good (published 11 December 2018).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to medicines, infection prevention and the safe use of equipment. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

The overall rating for the service has changed from good to requires improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.

The provider acted during and after out inspection visit to address the concerns raised and lessen the risk that people may be subjected to avoidable harm.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Thornton House Home for Older People on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement

We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection. We will continue to monitor the service to keep people safe and to hold providers to account where it is necessary for us to do so.

We have identified a breach in relation to safe care and treatment related to the management of risk and the management of some medicines. We identified a breach of good governance and the effectiveness of some audits at this inspection.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will request an action plan for the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.