Updated 11 June 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:
The inspection team on the first day was an inspector, a bank 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. Their experience was in dementia care. The second and third day was completed by one inspector.
Service and service type:
Oak House is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as 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 was in the process of appointing another registered manager to manage the service. On the first day of our inspection we were told it was the registered manager’s last working day with the organisation.
Notice of inspection: This inspection was unannounced on the first day.
What we did:
Before the inspection we reviewed the information that we held about the service and registered provider. This included any statutory notifications and safeguarding information that the service had told us about. Statutory notifications are information that the service is legally required to tell us about and include significant events such as accidents, injuries and safeguarding notifications.
During the inspection we reviewed each person’s medication administration record (MAR), reviewed 11 care plans and records relating to the care plans, four recruitment files and supervision records. We looked at the policies and procedures in place, and other audits and checks completed by the service. We spoke with staff including the manager, the person applying to become the registered manager, the governance manager,a senior member of the organisation who visited on the first day, the maintenance person, the lifestyle coordinator, registered nurses and the local authority quality control commissioner who was visiting at the time of our inspection. In addition, we spoke with four relatives and six people using the service.
We completed checks of the premises and observed how staff cared for and supported people. We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us to understand the experience of people who cannot talk with us. We observed meal time experiences and used the SOFI to observe how staff interacted and cared for people living with dementia.