Abbey Court Care Home

Updated 20 March 2019

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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, 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 carried out this inspection, supported by 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.

Service and service type:

Abbey Court 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 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.

What we did:

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 we sought feedback from the local authority quality monitoring team. 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 eleven people who used the service and four relatives to ask about their experience of the care provided. Some of the people using the service were unable to tell us their views about their care because they were living with dementia. We completed the short observational framework tool (SOFI) to help us to assess if people’s needs were appropriately met and they experienced good standards of care. SOFI is a specific way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.

We spoke with seven members of care staff, including two nurses, the registered manager, the deputy manager and a member of the provider’s management team. We also spoke with a visiting health professional to gain their views on how the staff worked with them.

We reviewed a range of records. These included seven people's care records and multiple medicines records. We also looked at records relating to the management of the home, including quality and safety audits and staff recruitment records. After the inspection, we asked the registered manager and provider to send us information in relation to accidents and incidents, their dementia strategy, DoLS records and minutes of relatives’ meetings. We received all the information we had requested.

Updated 20 March 2019

About the service:

Abbey Court Care Home is a care home which provides accommodation, personal care and nursing care to people aged 65 and over. It has two separate units, Oaks, on the ground floor and Elms, on the first floor, which accommodates people who are living with dementia. At the time of the inspection, 60 people were living at the home.

People’s experience of using this service:

The provider had made improvements to ensure people were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives. Staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service underpin this practice.

There were sufficient staff to keep people safe but improvements were needed to ensure the provider had effective systems to monitor how staff were deployed to meet people’s needs throughout the day. Staff received training and support to meet the needs of people at the service.

The provider carried out checks to ensure people received a safe and good quality service. However, improvements were needed to ensure the systems used to monitor safety related incidents were consistently effective.

People were involved in planning how they received their care. However, improvements were needed to ensure their care plans consistently reflected their needs and preferences. People’s individuality was recognised and promoted by the staff and the provider planned to make improvements to the assessment process to ensure people’s diverse needs were fully considered and met.

People were protected from the risk of harm by staff who understood their responsibilities to identify and report any signs of potential abuse. Risks associated with people’s care and support and the home environment were managed safely. People were supported to have healthy diet and to access other professionals to maintain good health. There were systems in place to ensure people received their medicines safely.

Staff were kind and caring and had good relationships with people. Relatives were welcomed at the home and felt involved in their family member’s care. People were supported to take part in activities and follow their interests and religious beliefs.

People and their relatives knew how to raise any concerns or complaints and felt confident they would be acted on. There were systems in place to capture people’s views on how the service could be improved.

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

Rating at last inspection: Requires Improvement, (report published 25 May 2017).

Why we inspected:

At the last inspection the service was rated Requires Improvement overall (in the key questions of Effective, Caring, Responsive). At this inspection, we found the provider had addressed the concerns identified. However, some improvements were needed in the key question of Well Led. As a result, the overall rating for the service has improved to Good.

Follow up:

Going forward we will continue to monitor this service to ensure that the service makes the improvements needed and will revisit in line with our inspection schedule for services rated Good.