Surrey Hills

Surrey Hills is a nursing care home providing accommodation, nursing and personal care to up to 45 people. The home provides care and support to older and younger adults, people with physical support needs, multiple health related care needs and people with dementia. At the time of our inspection there were 34 people using the service.

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

People received support which was overall personalised. However, staff did not always address people’s specific dementia support needs around their distress in a consistent way. The home provided support to many people with advanced dementia, so staff (especially new) required additional guidance and training.

The home environment and specific adaptations around dementia and the availability of meaningful engagement required improvement. We shared our feedback with the management who took immediate action to provide additional support and resources to staff to support people with complex dementia needs better.

People were supported safely with medicines. People’s individual risks and health needs were addressed in their care plans. There were enough staff to provide care to people in a timely way. New staff were recruited safely. People were supported to access healthcare as needed. Staff followed good infection prevention and control practice.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

People’s care plans were personalised. People received support to eat and drink well. People had opportunities to attend activities and events in the service and to host visitors. Staff respected people’s choices and independence.

People and their relatives were complimentary about staff and the management. A relative told us, “[Staff] are lovely and kind.” Staff felt supported and listened to and were very positive about their manager. One staff member told us, “[The registered manager] is a nice man with a big heart, very human, he talks a lot to the residents.”

The provider had good governance systems in place which enabled the management team to monitor the key areas of quality and safety of the service. The management team had identified actions and lessons learnt which were then implemented to improve the care provided to people. For example, clinical meetings were held to review and adjust individual people’s care. Staff were also supported to improve recording of the day-to-day care they provided to people.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 11 August 2021 and this is the first inspection with ratings.

The last rating for the service under the previous provider was good, published on 20 December 2019. The service was inspected but not rated and assured around infection prevention and control practice, published on 3 March 2022.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by the length of time since the changes in registration of this service.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

We found the following examples of good practice.

People were supported to minimise the impact of any periods of time when they required for their care to be provided in their room, for example following a positive COVID-19 test or a hospital stay. Staff considered and assessed individual people’s COVID-19 risks and other risks around their health and wellbeing.

Staff told us they were supportive of each other and felt there was good leadership in the home. They received guidance and support, including on how to protect people from the spread of infection. Staff recently refreshed their infection prevention and control training around correct use of the personal protective equipment (PPE). One staff said, “I am happy we work together as a team, we support each other during hard and good times.”

There were clear plans on how to manage any outbreaks of infections and staff were able to explain how these had been implemented. There was easy access to PPE around the home and cleaning was done regularly which was confirmed in housekeeping records.