Background to this inspection
Updated
22 April 2017
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, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
This unannounced inspection was carried out on 13 March 2017. The inspection team was made up of an inspector, an inspection manager and an expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of caring for someone who uses this type of service. Our expert had experience of caring for older people and people living with dementia.
Before our inspection, we reviewed information we held about the provider including, for example, statutory notifications that they had sent us. A statutory notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law.
During the inspection we spoke with five people who used the service and relatives of three other people. We spoke with the provider, the manager, two care workers and the cook. We reviewed the care records of four people who used the service and two staff recruitment files.
We also looked at other information related to the running of and the quality of the service. This included quality assurance records, maintenance schedules, training information for care staff, staff duty rotas, meeting minutes and arrangements for managing complaints.
We contacted the local authority that funded some of the care of people using the service and Healthwatch Leicestershire, the local consumer champion for people using adult social care services, to seek feedback about the service.
Updated
22 April 2017
We carried out an unannounced inspection on 13 March 2017. Alexandra House is a residential care home that provides personal care for up to 17 older people. At the time of our inspection 16 people were using the service. At our last inspection in January 2016, the service was rated ‘Good’. At this inspection we found that the service remained ‘good’ for being safe, effective, caring and responsive. However, we have required the provider to make improvements to Well-led.
A condition of registration was that Alexandra House had a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated regulations about how the service is run. Alexandra House had a registered manager but they were not actively involved in the running of the service. This responsibility was delegated to a person who was managing the service. That person told us they would apply to be the registered manager.
The provider’s arrangements for monitoring the quality of the service people experienced were informal. Few records of monitoring activity were kept. Not all reportable incidents had been notified to CQC.
People’s views were sought daily through dialogue with them. An annual satisfaction survey had been carried out.
People continued to receive safe care. They were supported by staff who knew how to recognise and report any signs that people were abused or at risk of abuse. The provider had assessed risks relating to people’s care to help them to remain safe.
The provider had procedures in place for staff to report concerns and for those concerns to be investigated and acted upon.
Staff were appropriately recruited and there were enough staff to provide care and support to people to meet their needs. People were supported to received their medicines safely.
The care that people received continued to be effective. Staff had access to the support, supervision and training that they required to work effectively in their roles. People were supported to maintain good health and nutrition.
People developed positive relationships with the staff who were caring and treated them with respect, kindness and dignity.
People had care plans in place that were focused on them as individuals. This allowed staff to provide consistent support in line with people’s personal preferences.
People’s needs were met in line with their individual care plans and assessed needs. Staff understood people’s needs and provided care and support that was tailored to their needs.
People and their relatives felt they could raise a concern and the provider had systems to manage any complaints that they may receive.
We found one breach of regulation. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.