16 May 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Forest Oaks is a residential care home providing personal and nursing care to up to 46 people. The service provides support to older people and younger adults. At the time of our inspection there were 37 people using the service.
Forest Oaks provides residential and nursing care to people in two separate wings of a purpose-built care home. There were three floors accessed by stairs and a passenger lift, providing accommodation and personal care to people needing residential care, and a wing for people who needed nursing care. There were various communal areas which included a large restaurant style dining room, lounge areas and an activity room. There was also a garden accessible from communal areas and some bedrooms.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People were cared for by staff trained in safeguarding who were confident concerns shared would be acted on. Risks were assessed to minimise potential harm to people and the premises were well maintained with regular servicing and checks taking place of equipment.
Staff were safely recruited and completed an in-depth induction. We received mixed feedback about staffing levels however these were increased during our inspection.
Medicines were safely managed, and an electronic medicines administration record had recently been introduced. The premises were very clean with no malodours.
There had been several changes to the manager over recent years that staff found unsettling. A new manager commenced in post on the first day of our inspection and the addition of team leaders was planned to reduce pressure on registered nurses.
The CEO and an interim manager had been overseeing the service which staff told us gave stability. The registered manager was based at another of the providers services.
Robust auditing ensured the service was safe and compliant and learning was taken and shared from accidents and incidents.
Positive working relationships had been forged with health and social care professionals and in the local community.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was good (published 17 October 2018).
Why we inspected
The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about staffing levels and a high turnover of managers. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only
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.
We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from these concerns. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report. For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.
The overall rating for the service remained good based on the findings of this inspection.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Forest Oaks on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.