Archived: The Field House Residential Care Home

Updated 19 January 2015

This inspection was undertaken by 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. We visited the home on 29 July 2014 and spoke with eight people living at the home, the registered manager, deputy manager, three care staff and a community nurse who was visiting a person who lived at the home. After our inspection we also spoke with the relatives of two people from the home, two GPs and a practice nurse who supported several people living at the home.

Before our inspection we reviewed the notifications the provider had sent us since our last visit. These are details of events and incidents the provider is required to notify us about, including unexpected deaths and injuries to people receiving care. The provider had submitted a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used this information to plan what areas we were going to focus on during our inspection.

We observed how care was delivered by care staff during the day including lunch time. We spent time observing care and support in a lounge area and a dining room.

We looked at records including five people’s care plans and the staff files for three members of staff. We also looked at records of staff meetings, best interest decisions, staff supervisions, residents meetings and accidents and incidents. We reviewed several of the provider’s policies including privacy and dignity, safeguarding, whistleblowing and complaints. We looked at the provider’s records for monitoring the quality of the service. These included how the provider responded to issues raised, audits, action plans and annual service reviews.

This report was written during the testing phase of our new approach to regulating adult social care services. After this testing phase, inspection of consent to care and treatment, restraint, and practice under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) was moved from the key question ‘Is the service safe?’ to ‘Is the service effective?

The ratings for this location were awarded in October 2014. They can be directly compared with any other service we have rated since then, including in relation to consent, restraint, and the MCA under the ‘Effective’ section. Our written findings in relation to these topics, however, can be read in the ‘Is the service safe’ sections of this report.

Updated 19 January 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 and to pilot a new inspection process being introduced by CQC which looks at the overall quality of the service.

The inspection was unannounced which means that we did not tell the provider beforehand that we were coming to inspect the home. At the last inspection in August 2013 the provider was meeting the requirements of the Regulations we looked at.

The Field House Residential Care Home is an adapted residential house. It provides accommodation for up to 21 older adults some of whom have dementia. At the time of our inspection 19 people were using the service. There was a registered manager at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service and has the legal responsibility for meeting the requirements of the law; as does the provider.

People who lived in the home, their relatives and health professionals who visited told us they felt that people at the home were safe. We saw there were systems and processes in place to protect people from the risk of harm. During our visit we found staff were caring and kept asking people if they needed anything. People told us that staff were nice to them. We saw that people were treated with dignity and respect.

Staff received appropriate training and were knowledgeable about the needs of people living in the home. They provided effective care and support that met people’s individual needs. We found that staff worked flexibly to ensure there were enough staff on duty to meet people’s needs and to enable people to participate in interests which they liked.

People were able to make choices about what they did and what they ate. People were supported to express their views and engage in hobbies and interests they wanted to do. Staff were able to explain how people liked to be supported.

Management systems were well established to monitor and learn from incidents and concerns. There were also systems to ensure the quality of the service was regularly reviewed against national standards of good practice. This meant that people received a service which constantly sought to improve and achieve compliance against national health and social care regulations.