29 April 2019
During a routine inspection
People’s experience of using this service:
People and relatives told us the service had improved since the new registered manager started in January 2019. Most people were satisfied with the service they received and felt previous concerns had been listened to and acted upon.
The provider, registered manager and staff were clear about improvements that had to be made at the service. They were proud of what they had achieved but understood that further improvement was needed in some areas, for example record keeping and staff deployment. Improvements already achieved needed to be sustained and embedded.
Everyone praised the registered manager who was approachable, resourceful and provided strong leadership. All staff told us they were motivated to work with the registered manager to make the improvements needed at the service.
Staffing levels had been increased and there were now sufficient staff to ensure people’s care needs were safely met. The registered manager was aware that improvements were required to ensure that staff were consistently deployed and were able to spend time with people. Staff were appropriately recruited and there were enough staff to provide care and support to people to meet their needs.
People were provided with a variety of nutritious meals, based on people’s choices and including special diets for those who needed them. Improvements continued to be required to the mealtime experience for people living in one area of the home.
Most people were happy living at Argyle House. They felt safe and liked the staff who looked after them. People received safe care and they were protected against avoidable harm, abuse, neglect and discrimination.
Improvements had been made to ensure that people’s medicines were safely managed. People’s safety was maintained because staff followed the risk management plans in place to mitigate risks to people.
The arrangements in place for food safety and infection control had improved. The environment was clean and well maintained.
External healthcare professionals supported staff to help people maintain or improve their health.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible.
Staff had access to the support, supervision and training they required to work effectively in their roles.
Staff were friendly and caring; they treated people with respect and maintained their dignity. Staff encouraged people to maintain their independence.
People had personalised plans of care in place to enable staff to provide consistent care and support in line with people’s preferences.
Information could be provided to people in an accessible format to enable them to make decisions about their care and support.
People knew how to raise a concern or make a complaint and the provider had implemented effective systems to manage any complaints received.
The service provided appropriate end of life care to people.
The service met the characteristics for a rating of "requires improvement" in all five key questions. Therefore, our overall rating for the service after this inspection was "requires improvement".
Rating at last inspection:
Inadequate (report published 17 January 2019).
Why we inspected:
This was a planned inspection based on the rating at the last inspection.
At the last comprehensive inspection, the provider was in breach of regulations 10, 12, 14, 17 and 18 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. We placed positive conditions on the provider’s registration to restrict admissions to the service and to provide monthly reports to the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
This service has been in Special Measures. Services that are in Special Measures are kept under review and inspected again within six months. We expect services to make significant improvements within this timeframe. During this inspection the service demonstrated to us that improvements have been made and is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is now out of Special Measures.
Follow up:
We will continue to monitor the service through the information we receive until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk