Knights Court Nursing Home

Updated 14 October 2022

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 team consisted of two inspectors, a pharmacist inspector and an Expert by Experience who spoke with people and relatives. 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

Knights Court Nursing Home 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.

Registered manager

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the CQC to manage the service. 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. At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

The first day of the inspection was unannounced.

What we did before the inspection

We looked at information we held about the service. This information included any statutory notifications that the provider had sent to the CQC. Statutory notifications include information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. This information helps support our inspections. We reviewed the last inspection report. We also reviewed information received from the local authority.

We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make.

We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.

During the inspection

We conducted this inspection over two days. During the inspection, we visited the communal areas and some bedrooms. We spoke with seven people who used the service, three relatives and 12 members of staff including the registered manager, regional manager, nurses, care workers and domestic staff. We reviewed a range of care records and records related to the running of the service. These records included twenty people's care files, ten medicine administration records and eight staff recruitment records. We also looked at policies and procedures, checks and audits carried out.

We also received feedback about the service from two care professionals.

Updated 14 October 2022

About the service

Knights Court Nursing Home provides accommodation and nursing care for up to 80 older people, some of whom may also have dementia. There were 57 people living in the home when we visited.

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

There was a welcoming and relaxed atmosphere in the home. We observed positive interactions between people and staff. Staff engaged with people in a meaningful way. People and relatives praised the friendly atmosphere in the home and described staff as caring and respectful.

Our previous inspection found there were deficiencies in relation to falls management in the home. During this inspection, we observed that the service had taken action to address this and made significant improvement.

People told us they felt safe living in the home. People were protected from the risk of avoidable harm. The service had systems and processes in place for safeguarding people and managing incidents and accidents.

Medicines were managed safely.

The home was well maintained, clean and tidy. The service had taken measures to help prevent and control the spread of COVID -19 and other infections. There was a record of essential maintenance carried out.

There were enough staff to assist people. People's needs were assessed regularly to make sure the service was able to meet people’s individual needs.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

The home had good working relationships with local health and social care agencies to support the needs and well-being of the people who live there.

Our previous inspection found accessing and locating information in people’s care records was sometimes difficult and time-consuming. Since the last inspection, the service reviewed all care records and amended these so that they were comprehensive and user-friendly.

The registered manager had good oversight of the home and an open culture was evident. Staff spoke positively about the registered manager and the support they received. They told us the registered manager was caring and approachable.

Monitoring and auditing systems were in place to check the quality and safety of people's care. These were robust and were consistently carried out. The registered manager sought feedback from people and relatives and made improvements where necessary.

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 requires improvement (published 6 September 2021).

The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve.

At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

At our last inspection we recommended that medicines care plans were reviewed to make them person centred. During this inspection we found the provider had acted on this recommendation and made improvements.

Why we inspected

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe and Well-led which contain those requirements.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

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