18 July 2012
During a routine inspection
Some of the people were not able to tell us about their experiences of living at the home. To help us to understand the experiences people have, we used our SOFI (Short Observational Framework for Inspection) tool. The SOFI tool allows us to spend time watching what is going on in a service and helps us to record how people spend their time, the type of support they get and whether they have positive experiences. We spoke with four people living there who were able to tell us about their experiences. We also spoke with the manager, four members of staff and two relatives who visited during the day. We looked at the records of two of the people living there and sampled the provider's records.
People told us they could choose what they ate and drank. We saw that people were offered choices of food and drinks. One person said, "The food is very good."
Records showed that people and their relatives where appropriate were involved in their care plans. These showed staff how the person wanted to be supported to meet their needs and what things they liked.
We saw that staff interacted well with the people living there. People told us, "The staff are good." and "They are very good to me here." Staff spoken with knew how to support the people living there to meet their needs.
Staffing levels were regularly reviewed and from these we saw the right number of staff were on duty. However, the people living there needed a lot of assistance from staff to meet their needs. We saw that staff were very busy and were not always able to respond to people immediately when they asked for help.
We saw that people were referred to other health professionals when needed and staff followed their advice. A relative told us, "My relative is so much better since they have been here and they have put on weight. I thoroughly recommend this place."
People told us they felt safe living there. Staff had training in how to safeguard the people living there from abuse and knew how to do this.
Staff said they had a lot of training so they knew how to support the people living there and meet their needs. Staff said they felt supported in their role and the manager was always available and listened to them.
Regular audits were done to ensure that the home was safe and that people's needs were being met.
People and their relatives told us they knew how to make a complaint. They said that their concerns would be listened to and dealt with in the right way.