Background to this inspection
Updated
1 July 2015
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
The inspection took place on 10 December 2014 and was unannounced. The inspection team consisted of three inspectors.
We carried out this inspection in response to information and concerns received. This included information from the local authority quality and monitoring team and from relatives.
We reviewed all the information we had available about the service including notifications sent to us by the manager. This is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We also looked at information sent to us from other stakeholders, for example the local authority and members of the public. We used this information to plan what areas we were going to focus on during our inspection.
During the inspection we spoke with eight people who used the service and two relatives about their views of the care provided. Where people were unable speak with us directly we used informal observations to evaluate people’s experiences and help us assess how their needs were being met; we also observed how staff interacted with people. We spoke with four care staff, the manager and the deputy manager.
We looked at six sets of people’s care records and also looked at information relating to the management of the service such as health and safety records, staff training records, quality monitoring audits and information about complaints.
Following the inspection visit we spoke with two health and social care professionals.
Updated
1 July 2015
This inspection took place on 10 December 2014 and was unannounced.
Tendring Meadows Care Home provides accommodation and personal care for up to 53 people who may be elderly, have a physical disability or be living with dementia. The service does not provide nursing care. At the time of our inspection there were 27 people who used the service.
A registered manager was in post at the service. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
At the last inspection of the service on 25 June 2014 there were no areas of concern in the standards we looked at.
At this inspection we found that improvements were required in the way the service was managed. While some aspects of good management were in place, the registered manager had not implemented other areas that were essential to good management. The manager had not complied with regulations in relation to notifying the Care Quality Commission of relevant incidents.
You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.
The manager did not have good processes for auditing and managing accidents and incidents to learn from them and drive up the quality of the service. The process for managing risk needed to improve so that the risk of harm to people using the service was reduced.
People felt that the care and support they received was good and kept them safe. Processes were in place for supporting people to take their medicines safely.
People’s care needs were met by staff who were knowledgeable about how people preferred to be supported.
There were processes in place to support staff to develop the skills and knowledge they needed to fulfil their roles effectively and staff felt well supported.
People’s requirements around food and drink were met and they enjoyed the food.
Staff understood how to reduce people’s anxieties and provided care and support in ways that were kind and caring.
People were content with the lifestyle at the service and the way staff supported them to make choices about how they spent their time.
Staff and people at the service were positive about the open culture.