Archived: Alne Hall - Care Home with Nursing Physical Disabilities

Updated 8 November 2018

The inspection: We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked 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.

Inspection team: Two inspectors visited on both days.

Service and service type: Alne Hall - Care Home with Nursing Physical Disabilities is a care home. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means they, along with the provider, are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection: This inspection was unannounced.

What we did:

Prior to the inspection, we reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as abuse and serious injuries. We sought feedback from the local authority, clinical commissioning group and professionals who work with the service. We assessed the information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection, we spoke with six people and four relatives to ask about their experience of the care provided. 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 spoke with 16 members of staff during the inspection, including the chef, volunteer coordinator, deputy manager, nurses, team leaders, activities staff and care workers. We also spoke with the registered manager, area manager, quality manager and area quality director.

We reviewed a range of records. This included five people’s care records and multiple medication records. We looked at three staff recruitment files and 11 agency care worker and volunteer files. Various records were reviewed, in relation to training and supervision of staff, the management of the home and a variety of policies and procedures developed and implemented by the provider.

Updated 8 November 2018

What life is like for people using this service:

Since our last inspection a new registered manager and deputy manager had been employed at the service. They had worked as a strong team to mentor and empower the staff to make improvements to the support people received. The provider had allocated specialist support to aid those improvements.

Lots of checks had been completed to help the provider understand if improvements were being made. The checks did not always highlight areas for improvement, or where they did we saw action plans were not recorded effectively. The provider had a system to ensure accidents and incidents were well managed and that lessons were learned and changes made to prevent a reoccurrence. We saw this system was not always followed and this meant people were at risk. These systems needed to work better to ensure safety and quality for people.

People, their relatives and the staff all told us they felt more confident in the leadership and management of the service. Good staffing levels afforded people responsive and dignified support.

Staff morale was good and everyone was committed to ensuring people received care and support based on their preferences and choices. People told us they enjoyed their food, the range of activities and felt well cared for. People said they were always treated with respect. Care workers were eager to be involved in the social aspects of people’s lives, which demonstrated their commitment to people’s overall wellbeing. The registered manager was looking for ways to develop this, particularly to ensure activities are provided at weekends in future.

Positive changes were seen at this inspection and the motivation for continuous improvement was demonstrated by the staff team within the service. More robust systems would support the provider to make further change to sustain improvements made.

More information is in Detailed Findings below

Rating at last inspection: Requires improvement (report published 20 April 2018)

About the service: Alne Hall - Care Home with Nursing Physical Disabilities is a residential care home that provides personal and nursing care for up to 30 people with physical disabilities. At the time of the inspection 25 people used the service.

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the rating at the last inspection. We saw improvements had been made since our last inspection but the impact of poor governance has meant the rating remains requires improvement. This is the fifth consecutive time this service has been rated requires improvement.

Follow up: We will work with the provider following this report being published to understand and monitor how they will make changes to ensure the service improves their rating to at least Good.