11 January 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Stadium Court is a care home that was providing personal and nursing care to 65 people across three separate units at the time of inspection; these were called Wedgwood, Spode and Wade units. Each unit had their own adapted facilities. There were five units in total, but two were closed. The service can support up to 110 people. People who used the service were over 65 who had mental health needs such as dementia and physical disabilities.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Quality assurance systems had not been fully embedded, but the registered manager had been making improvements. Medicines were not always managed safely as there were some stock discrepancies, and medications that had expired but had not been disposed of. Although we did not find anyone having come to harm as a result of this, action was taken to address immediately by the registered manager and nursing staff.
Staff recruitment was on-going and some agency staff were being used to meet people’s needs.
Risks to people were not always assessed and planned for, and some care plans needed reviewing. Staff did not always understand people’s needs. This was being addressed by the registered manager.
Staff were trained to recognise and respond to concerns of abuse. There were adequate infection prevention and control measures in place.
Lessons were learned when things went wrong. Actions were taken to address incidents and share learning with staff. The registered manager was aware of their duty of candour.
Staff felt the registered manager was approachable, supportive and visible.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection and update
The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 26 September 2019). The service remains rated requires improvement. This service has been rated requires improvement for the last three consecutive inspections.
Why we inspected
The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about staffing, medicines and falls. 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.
We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Stadium Court Care Home 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 discharge our regulatory enforcement functions required 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 Regulation 17 (Good governance) at this inspection.
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.