Hatley Court

Updated 9 December 2020

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 was carried out by two inspectors.

Service and service type

Hatley Court is a care home. People in care homes receive accommodation and 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.

We received information of concern about infection control and prevention measures at this service. As part of this inspection we included looking at the infection control and prevention measures the provider had in place. This was conducted so we could understand the preparedness of the service in preventing or managing an infection outbreak, and to identify good practice we can share with other services.

The service did not have a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. The previous registered manager left in March 2020. The current manager had only been in post since September 2020 and were going to apply to be the registered manager. This meant that the provider is legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection

The inspection was announced prior to us entering the home, so we could ensure that measures were in place to support an inspection and manage any infection control risks. The provider was not aware of our inspection prior to our visit on 10 November 2020.

What we did before the inspection

Prior to our inspection we reviewed and analysed the information we held about this service. This included reviewing statutory notifications the service had sent us. A notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We also viewed the information sent to us by stakeholders. Feedback was requested from the local authority quality assurance and safeguarding teams.

A Provider Information Return (PIR) is key information providers are requested to send us on their service, what they do well and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We did not request a PIR for this inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with four people who used the service and five relatives. In addition, we also spoke with the manager, deputy manager and a visiting operations' manager, who was there supporting the manager for two days a week, as well as seven care staff and three other staff, including housekeeping and kitchen staff.

We reviewed the medicines administration records (MARs). We looked at two people’s care plans associated with risks. We also reviewed one person's incident records, infection prevention and control policies and other records associated with the management of the service. Records were also requested from the manager to assist with our inspection.

After our inspection

We asked the provider for further documents and these were received within the requested timescale. These were reviewed and were included as part of our inspection.

Updated 9 December 2020

About the service

Hatley Court is a residential care home that provides personal care. It is registered to provide care and support for up to 35 older people. At the time of the inspection 33 people, some of who lived with dementia, were receiving personal care. Accommodation was provided over two floors accessible by a passenger lift and stairs.

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

People were safeguarded from harm by staff who were trained and knowledgeable about identifying and reporting any potential abuse. Medicines were administered and managed safely but some records had not been completed. Risks to people were identified and managed well. There were enough staff, who had been safely recruited and met people’s needs. Lessons were learned when things went wrong. There were mostly good systems in place to support good infection prevention and control practise.

The provider had ensured we were notified about events such as safeguarding. Audits in place were effective in identifying and driving improvements. The manager had identified and was addressing issues and had begun to build a supportive and positive staff team culture. One staff member said, “The manager is now managing the staff team as a manager should.” Staff, including the manager, were supported in their role via mentoring, team meetings and supervisions. However, not all supervisions, best interest decisions and medicines administration records had been recorded correctly. The provider and manager took action to address this before we completed our inspection. People were involved in how the service was run. The provider worked well with others involved in people's care and support.

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 15 May 2019).

Why we inspected

We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well led. This was because we received concerns in relation to the management of the service, staffing, medicines administration, management of risks, infection prevention and control. Several safeguarding concerns had been raised with the local authority in relation to poor care. A decision was made for us to inspect and examine those risks. This report only covers our findings in relation to the key questions safe and well-led which contain those requirements.

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.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from these concerns. The provider had acted on safeguarding allegations and other concerns to help prevent the potential and risk of occurrences.

Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report. The overall rating for the service has not changed from good overall but the safe domain has improved to good. 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 Hatley Court 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.