Updated 19 November 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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team
The inspection was carried out by an inspector and an Expert by Experience on the first day, and by an inspector on the second day. 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
Richmond Park is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as a single package under one contractual agreement. The Care Quality Commission (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 before the inspection
We looked at the information we held about the service. This information included statutory notifications the provider had sent to CQC. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We also contacted local authority commissioners and two healthcare professionals for their views about the service. This information helps support our inspections. We used all this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection
We spent time in the communal areas observing how staff provided support for people to help us better understand their experiences of the care they received. We spoke with twelve people living in the home and with five relatives. We also spoke with the registered manager, two supervisors, and five care staff. We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.
We had a tour of the premises and looked at a range of documents and written records. This included six people’s care records and multiple medicines records. We looked at five staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervisions. We reviewed a variety of records related to the management of the service, including policies and procedures, maintenance records and checks on the quality and safety of the service.