Updated 30 October 2019
The inspection
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team
The inspection team consisted of one inspector and an Expert by Experience. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service for older people.
Service and service type
The Retreat Care Home is a 'care home'. People in care homes receive accommodation and personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at on this inspection.
The registered manager of a service and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided. The service did not currently have a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. However, a new manager had been appointed and the company where waiting for recruitment clearance before they started work. There were suitable arrangements in place to oversee the day to day running of the service.
Notice of inspection
The inspection was unannounced.
What we did before the inspection
We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections.
We also reviewed information that we held about the service such as notifications. These are events that happen in the service that the provider is required to tell us about. This information helps support our inspections. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection
We spoke with six people who used the service about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with the nominated individual, care manager, deputy manager, four care staff and the maintenance person. Some people were not able to tell us verbally about their experience of living at The Retreat. Therefore, we observed the interactions between people and the staff supporting them. We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.
We reviewed a range of records. This included three people’s care records and a sample of medicines records. We looked at one staff file in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies, procedures and staff training records were reviewed.