27 November 2020
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Leonora Home is a residential care home providing personal care and accommodation for up 20 people. At the time of our inspection there were 13 people in the home and a further two people in hospital.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
We identified some areas of practice where improvements needed to be made. We have made a recommendation to the provider to review their monitoring systems in order to identify and take action on infection prevention and control (IPC) concerns.
The staff bin where they disposed of their used face masks did not have a lid on, increasing the risk of spreading infection. We saw that around the home some PPE stations were in areas where they could become contaminated. Staff were working between the different floors of the home, which increased the risk of infection transmission.
Staff had completed mandatory IPC training and undertaken further refreshers and training in COVID 19 and correctly putting on and taking off their personal protection equipment (PPE).
We observed that staff were all wearing the correct levels of PPE in the service and saw correct handwashing practice was followed.
Regular testing was completed in the home twice a week, this was also extended to include agency staff.
There had been an impact on regular staffing levels in the home during this outbreak. Agency staff were being utilised in the home and the management had firstly gained assurance they would only be working in this service.
The environment appeared clean, odour free and hand sanitiser was available at points throughout the home.
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 rating for this service was good (published 16 October 2018).
Why we inspected
As part of CQC’s response to care homes with outbreaks of coronavirus, we are conducting reviews to ensure that the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practice was safe and the service was compliant with IPC measures. This was a targeted inspection looking at the IPC practices the provider has in place. Targeted inspections do not change the rating from the previous inspection. This is because they do
not assess all areas of a key question.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.