Aldersmead Care Home

Updated 16 March 2022

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.

As part of CQC’s response to care homes with outbreaks of COVID-19, we are conducting reviews to ensure that the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practice is safe and that services are compliant with IPC measures. This was a targeted inspection looking at the IPC practices the provider has in place. We also asked the provider about any staffing pressures the service was experiencing and whether this was having an impact on the service.

This inspection took place on 22 February2022 and was unannounced.

Updated 16 March 2022

About the service

Aldersmead Care Home is situated in Bognor Regis, West Sussex. The service provides personal and nursing care for up to 38 older people living with physical health care needs such as stroke or diabetes and people who are living with dementia. There were 33 people using the service at the time of inspection.

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

Management and staff worked to make improvements to the service. Further improvements were needed to systems and processes in regard to medicines to ensure consistency. Analyses of quality audits were not always undertaken and there was a lack of information to ensure audits were accurate. For example, whilst falls were recorded, they were not all entered onto the auditing system, this meant the provider was unable to analyse trends of accidents. This was fed back to the provider who took steps to ensure improvements were made.

People said they felt safe and happy in the service and were encouraged to give feedback which was listened to. The manager sought advice from professionals and other agencies to enable continual improvements to the health and well-being of people.

People said there were enough staff to meet their needs. A relative told us, “The whole staff team are very visible, approachable and responsive, including the owner which is reassuring to an anxious relative. The change of matron/manager was handled very smoothly from an outside perspective”.

Risks were managed well; the manager described the bite-sized learning sessions which had been introduced. For example, there were learning sessions on how to support people who were living with diabetes. People were supported to live in a well-maintained environment and had access to equipment, we observed a person had been involved in the decision to have equipment to keep them safe when in bed.

People were safe living at the home. The management team ensured government guidance, including the management of COVID-19, was followed. A variety of visiting opportunities enabled people to stay in touch with their loved ones, where people were being cared for in bed, video and in room visits were facilitated.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

We have made a recommendation about the auditing and quality assurance systems.

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 13 February 2018)

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to management of medicines, staffing levels and management of risks. 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 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.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

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

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.