Updated 21 February 2019
The inspection:
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked 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.
Inspection team:
The inspection was conducted by two adult social care inspectors, an inspection manager and an expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.
Service and service type:
Birchlands Care Home is a nursing home. It provides a service for up to 54 older people, younger adults and people living with dementia.
The service had a manager registered with CQC. 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:
The inspection was unannounced. Prior to the inspection we had received information of concern regarding morning and evening routines at the home, so we started our inspection in the early hours of the morning to look at the concerns raised.
What we did:
Before our inspection, we looked at information we held about the service. The provider sent us a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We reviewed the information we held about the service, such as notifications we had received from the registered manager. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law. We sought feedback from the local authority contract monitoring team prior to our visit. We used this information to plan the inspection.
During the inspection we spoke with 10 people who used the service and one relative. We spoke with the deputy manager, regional manager, the care manager, three nurses, three care staff and the maintenance person. We looked at a range of documents and records related to people’s care and the management of the service. We viewed four people's care records, medication records, three staff recruitment, induction and training files and a selection of records used to monitor the quality and safety of the service. After the site visit, we spoke with the registered manager over the telephone as they were not available on the day of the inspection.