About the service Osborne House is a modern, purpose built nursing and residential care home. The service was providing personal and nursing care to 52 people aged 65 and over at the time of the inspection.
The service can support up to 74 people over three floors, each of which has separate facilities. The top floor specialises in providing residential care to people living with dementia and nine people were on this floor. The middle floor provides nursing care and had 21 people receiving support. The ground floor provides general residential care and had 22 people living there at the time of the inspection.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
We looked at the whole service during the inspection; the care and support given to people on the ground floor and top floor was sufficient to meet people’s needs. The outcomes of our report mainly reflect the care and support practices of the nursing unit on the middle floor. Throughout the report we have referenced where our judgement is specific to the nursing unit. All other judgements relate to the whole service.
Nursing unit
Insufficient numbers of experienced and competent staff had impacted on all aspects of the care being delivered. There was a lack of effective organisation amongst the senior staff, which meant new and inexperienced staff were working without sufficient guidance and support.
Care records were not completed in a consistent manner. Some records were not up to date and documentation was not fully completed. Staff said they did not have time to read the care records.
People’s privacy and dignity was not promoted through staff practice. The care and support delivered to people were task based and did not meet their needs. People were not being supported to wash or bathe on a regular basis which meant their skin integrity was put at risk and they appeared unkempt.
Staff lacked the knowledge and skills to effectively manage the behaviours of people living with dementia. This put people and others at risk of harm.
All three units
The recording and administration of medicines was not managed appropriately in the service. People did not always receive their medicines as prescribed by their GP.
The induction, supervision and training programme for staff was not robust and did not adequately enable them to carry out the duties they were employed to perform. The provider did not monitor this which meant people were at risk of being cared for by staff who lacked the knowledge, competency and skills to meet their needs.
The lack of effective leadership, oversight and management meant the quality assurance and monitoring processes within the service were not used to drive improvement. The assessment, monitoring and mitigation of risk for people with regard to basic care needs such as medicine management, bowel care, personal hygiene and pressure care was not carried out effectively. This meant people's health and safety was put at risk.
We received positive feedback from people and relatives on the residential and dementia units about their care and support. People on these two units were treated with dignity and respect.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was good (published 29 May 2019).
Why we inspected
The inspection was prompted in part by notification of a specific incident. During which poor care practices were observed. This incident is subject to a criminal investigation. As a result, this inspection did not examine the circumstances of the incident.
The information CQC received about the incident indicated concerns about the management of risks to people who may experience distress or anxiety and staff approach to safety during personal care. 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.
The overall rating for the service has changed from good to inadequate. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvement. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this report.
During and after our inspection we found that the provider took action to improve the quality of the service. The manager worked with the staff to stop institutionalised practices and improve the quality of life for people who used the service.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Osborne House on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Enforcement
We have identified breaches in relation to the provision of safe care and treatment, safeguarding people from harm and abuse, staffing and good governance at this inspection. Please find the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.
Follow up
We will request an action plan from 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.
The overall rating for this service is ‘Inadequate’ and the service is therefore in ‘special measures’. This means we will keep the service under review and, if we do not propose to cancel the provider’s registration, we will re-inspect within 6 months to check for significant improvements.
If the provider has not made enough improvement within this timeframe. and there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall rating, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures. This will mean we will begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will usually lead to cancellation of their registration or to varying the conditions of the registration.
For adult social care services, the maximum time for being in special measures will usually be no more than 12 months. If the service has demonstrated improvements when we inspect it, and it is no longer rated as inadequate for any of the five key questions, it will no longer be in special measures.