Stambridge Meadows Care Home

Updated 5 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 20 January 2022 and was unannounced.

Updated 5 March 2022

About the service

Stambridge Meadows is a residential care home and was providing personal care to 24 people aged 65 and over at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to 49 people in one adapted building.

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

People told us they were safe and liked living at Stambridge Meadows.

Effective arrangements were not in place to mitigate all risks for people using the service or staff employed. Not all appropriate measures were in place or being followed by staff to prevent and control the spread of infection.

This was a breach of Regulation 12 [Safe care and treatment] of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 [Regulated Activities] Regulations 2014.

The leadership, management and governance arrangements provided some assurances to suggest the service was being managed well. Quality assurance and governance arrangements at the service were much better but still required improvement to ensure risks to people were mitigated, records relating to their care and support were accurate and infection, prevention and control measures were safe.

Since our last inspection in January 2020, people were protected by the service’s safeguarding arrangements. The deployment of staff was suitable to meet people’s care and support needs. Proper arrangements were now in place to ensure people received their medication as they should.

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.

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

Rating at last inspection (and update)

The last rating for this service was Inadequate [published 19 May 2020]. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve.

At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of Regulations 9 [Person-centred care], 13 [Safeguarding service users from abuse and improper treatment], 17 [Good governance] and 18 [Staffing].

This service has been in Special Measures since 19 May 2020. During this inspection, the provider demonstrated that improvements have been made. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is no longer in Special Measures.

Why we inspected

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 coronavirus and other infection outbreaks effectively.

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions ‘Safe’ and ‘Well-Led’ which contain those requirements.

The ratings from the previous comprehensive inspection for those key questions not looked at on this occasion were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection. The overall rating for the service has changed from Inadequate to Requires Improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Stambridge Meadows 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.