Thomas Knight Care Home

Updated 12 July 2024

We carried out our on-site assessment on 13 August 2024, off-site assessment activity started on 13 August 2024 and ended on 11 September 2024. We looked at evidence categories in Safe and Well-Led. There were areas of improvement for the service to focus on, most notably governance and oversight. The provider and registered manager had not always ensured there were effective governance in place to ensure safe and effective care at all times. We therefore found the service was therefore in breach of regulation 17 (good governance). Documented analysis of incidents had only started in the previous month, at the request of other stakeholders, and there was a lack of formal auditing documentation to identify issues and demonstrate improvements. Concerns regarding the environment, staff being bare below elbow, safeguarding responses, and medicines record keeping, could reasonably have been addressed prior to our visit, with effective governance processes in place. Feedback was mixed about the responsiveness of leadership and the availability of staff. The provider was open to feedback and they shared their policies and staffing arrangements promptly. There were positives, such as people’s descriptions of staff and how they engaged with people and their relatives. People felt safe and secure, and had access to a range of primary and secondary healthcare services when they needed. Improvements had been made to medicines record keeping, following support from other stakeholders. Safeguarding training, policies and procedures and policies were up to date. People and their relatives were involved in care planning and review. The culture was focused on people receiving safe care, but needed to be open to other ways of working, and explore best practice to continue improving. They had yet to demonstrate improvements were sustainable.

Updated 12 July 2024

We spoke with 7 people who used the service, 2 relatives and a range of visiting professionals, on the day and after the site visit. People who used the service described staff positively and interacted with them warmly. People felt safe and that they knew a lot of their carers. One person said, “I’m safe yes, they just look after us generally, they see to my needs, I’m well fed, showered, they do my nails.” People felt there were times when it was difficult to get the support they needed from a member of staff. Some visiting professionals shared similar experiences and we experienced people waiting for support during our inspection, with the staff member tasked with the medicines round regularly called away from their task. A number of people, and visitors, raised the décor as an issue. Whilst there were reasons for having one floor more sparsely decorated than others, the provider needed to do more to ensure there are more environmental improvements to improve people’s ability to orientate, to interact and to improve their wellbeing. They had yet to fully explore options and consider dementia friendly best practice. People and relatives felt they could speak up if they had any concerns. Some staff felt they were unable to raise concerns openly. We raised this with the provider. Staff cared about people deeply and wanted them to have the best care possible.