Drake Court Residential Home

Updated 24 December 2021

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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

As part of this inspection we looked at the infection control and prevention measures in place. This was conducted so we can understand the preparedness of the service in preventing or managing an infection outbreak, and to identify good practice we can share with other services.

Inspection team

The inspection was undertaken by two inspectors.

Service and service type

Drake Court is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as a single package under one contractual agreement. 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 that they and 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.

Inspection activity started on 20 October and ended on 11 November 2021. We visited the service on 20 October and 03 November 2021.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. 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 used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with seven people who used the service and five relatives about their experience of the care provided. We also spoke with nine staff which included care and domestic staff, a visiting healthcare professional, the provider and nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider. 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 documents and records including the care records for seven people, three medicine records, three staff recruitment files. We also looked at records that related to the management and quality assurance of the service.

After the inspection

We continued to seek clarification from the registered manager to validate evidence found.

Updated 24 December 2021

About the service

Drake Court is a residential care home providing personal care and accommodation for up to 29 people some of whom may live with dementia. The service was supporting 29 people at the time of the inspection in one adapted building.

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

Although some improvements had been made since our last inspection, risks to people were still not consistently well managed and left people at potential risk of harm. Improvements were being made to the management of people’s medicines. Mixed feedback was received about the staffing levels in place. Staff met peoples core needs, but support was task-focused and staff did not appear to have quality time with people. Systems were in place to protect people from risk of abuse. We were somewhat assured with the measures in place to prevent the spread of infection.

People did not always have the equipment available to meet their needs. Improvements were still required to ensure records contained detailed information about people including their end of life wishes. People knew how to raise concerns and told us staff knew them well and were responsive to their needs. There were some opportunities for people to engage in activities although this could be improved for people that lived with dementia. Systems were in place to support people to maintain contact with their loved ones.

Although we saw improvements had been made in the areas we identified during our last inspection, we found further improvements were required. The systems in place to monitor the service were still not detailed enough to enable the management team to identify shortfalls.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection and update: The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 17 April 2019 ) and there were two breaches of regulation. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection enough improvement had not been made or sustained, and the provider was still in breach of regulations.

The service remains rated requires improvement. This service has been rated requires improvement for the last six consecutive inspections.

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to care planning and staff not being responsive to peoples care needs. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, responsive and well-led only.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

The overall rating for the service has not changed and remains as requires improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

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 have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvement. Please see the safe, and well led sections of this full report. You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report. The provider had started to take action to mitigate the risks we had identified.

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

Enforcement

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 discharge our regulatory enforcement functions required to keep people safe and to hold providers to account where it is necessary for us to do so.

We have identified continued breaches in relation to the management of risk and providing safe care, and the overall governance of the service.

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 return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.