Shire Oak House

Shire Oak House is a residential care home providing personal care for up to 26 older people and/or people with dementia. At the time of inspection 24 people were living in the home with two vacancies.

Shire Oak House accommodates up to 26 people in one adapted building. The accommodation is over two floors with a lift connecting the ground floor to the first floor. There is a dedicated managers office located on the ground floor. There are usually five staff on day shifts including a senior carer as well as the registered manager. Nights are covered by two staff with managers available ‘on-call’ as required.

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

There was no system in place to ensure that people coming into ‘step down’ service provision had an adequate stock of medication. We found a person’s medication had not been given to them for a day due to the provider not holding enough stock and not having an effective system that ensured staff chase up prescriptions so that people had medication available to them.

There was no effective system in place to ensure that the provider was ensuring staff references were sought and that gaps in working history were explored.

People told us staff were kind and caring and treated them with dignity and respect and we observed some examples of staff working in a caring way.

The family of a person who lived at the home told us that their relatives received good levels of care and support.

People received person centred care and there were enough activities available for people to enjoy. People and their relatives were usually consulted about their wishes about the end of their life and were involved in reviews of their care. People, relatives and staff were always given the opportunity to provide feedback on the service and any concerns they had regarding their relative

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff always supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests.

People, staff and relatives knew how to complain. The provider and registered manager understood their responsibilities under the duty of candour.

From 11 November 2021 registered persons must make sure all care home workers and other professionals visiting the service are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, unless they have an exemption or there is an emergency. We checked to make sure the service was meeting this requirement. We found the service had effective measures in place to make sure this requirement was being met.

Rating at last inspection.

The service was registered with us on 01 June 2021 and this is the first inspection.

The last rating under the previous provider for this service was good (published 02 May 2019).

Why we inspected

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. This included checking the provider was meeting COVID-19 vaccination requirements.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the Well-Led section of this full report.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Shire Oak House on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement and Recommendations

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 monitor the service and will take further action if needed.

We have identified a breach in relation to regulation 17, good governance at this inspection.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will meet with the provider following this report being published to discuss how they will make changes to ensure they improve their rating to at least good. We will work with the local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.