The Evergreens Care Centre

Updated 28 March 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 was carried out by one inspector and one assistant inspector.

Service and service type: The Evergreens Care Centre 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 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 reviewed information we had received about the service. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as abuse. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We had not requested information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection we spoke with seven people living at the service and five relatives. 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 also spoke with the registered manager, the regional operations manager, two deputy managers, a nurse, two care staff, the head housekeeper and the chef.

We viewed a range of records which included five people's care, medicine records, four staff files including recruitment, supervision and training information and records relating to the management of the service.

We looked around the building and spent time in the communal areas.

After the inspection the registered manager shared some additional information with us in relation to gaining the views of people, family members and staff.

Updated 28 March 2019

About the service: The Evergreens Care Centre provides personal and nursing care for up to 43 people. At the time of this inspection 28 people were living at the service. The home is on two floors; the first floor provides nursing care and the ground floor provides residential care.

People’s experience of using this service: People, and their family members said the care they received was much improved since the new management team had been in place. We were told staff were kind, caring and couldn’t do enough for people.

People were involved in decisions regarding their care and their environment. People had been involved in making decisions about décor and menu options. Peoples family members had also been encouraged to get involved in choosing menu options.

Feedback from staff had been sought and the registered manager was keen to engage with the staff team in sharing ideas for continuous improvement and involvement in the running of the home.

Widespread improvements had been made since the last inspection in relation to staffing, care, records, medicine management, environment support and training. Staff told us they were very well supported and they were appropriately trained.

The culture was one of openness and transparency. Staff, people and visitors were complimentary of the approach of the registered manager and the staff team and shared how improvements had been made to the point where visitors would not hesitate to recommend the home to others.

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

Rating at last inspection: Requires Improvement (report published 14 June 2018).

Following the last inspection we asked the provider to complete an action plan to show what they would do and by when to improve the key question of well-led to at least good. During this inspection we found significant improvements had been made.

Why we inspected: This was a scheduled inspection based on the previous rating. Due to the history of the service we brought the inspection forward slightly to ensure improvements were being sustained.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor the service to make sure people receive safe, compassionate, high quality care. Further inspections will be planned for future dates in line with our inspection programme.