Charters Court Nursing and Residential Home

Updated 11 June 2021

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.

As part of this inspection we looked at the infection control and prevention measures in place. This was conducted so we can understand the preparedness of the service in preventing or managing an infection outbreak, and to identify good practice we can share with other services.

Inspection team

The inspection site visit was carried out by two inspectors and the inspection activity was led remotely by another inspector.

Service and service type

Charters Court Nursing and Residential Home is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as a 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 did not have a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. The registered manager and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided. However, there was a home manager in charge of the day to day running of the service who was in the process of applying for CQC registration.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was unannounced.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed all information we received about the service since the last inspection. We requested feedback from the local authority and Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 11 people who received care and two relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with 10 members of staff including the home manager, the deputy manager, staff nurse, senior care staff, care staff, the area director and the area quality director.

We reviewed a range of records. This included four people’s care records and multiple medicines records. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed.

After the inspection

We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found. We looked at staff training data, meeting records and further governance and quality assurance records. We looked at two staff records in relation to recruitment checks. We spoke with four relatives of the people using the service and one more staff member. We also received feedback from one professional working with the home.

Updated 11 June 2021

About the service

Charters Court Nursing and Residential Home is a care home in East Grinstead providing personal and nursing care to up to 60 people aged over 65yrs who require support due to physical and health needs, some of whom also live with dementia. At the time of the inspection, 40 people lived and received personal and /or nursing care in the four suites of the home.

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

People received care and support meeting their individual needs and were protected from avoidable harm. Staff knew people well, protected them from abuse and neglect and provided safe support with medicines. The manager ensured lessons were learned to protect people following any adverse events.

People and staff told us there were enough staff on duty to provide safe and timely care. The provider reduced the use of temporary staff and employed more permanent staff. The manager implemented changes in roster planning to ensure good quality care was provided by the team of staff who had appropriate mix of skills and experience.

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. Where appropriate, people had deprivation of liberty safeguards authorisations and staff supported them in a least restrictive way.

The home management continued to engage with people, their relatives, staff and other professionals to ensure good governance and continuous improvement of the service. This led to improvements in food quality, staff training, safety of medicines administration and individual people’s care. Staff told us they felt very supported by the manager and the provider. The provider regularly engaged with the home management team to support service quality monitoring.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 26 July 2019) and there were breaches of regulation 11 (Need for consent) and regulation 17 (Good governance). 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.

Why we inspected

We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection of this service on 23 May 2019. Continued breaches of legal requirements were found, although we saw improvements had also been made to the service in other areas. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to restore their compliance with regulation 11 (Need for consent) and regulation 17 (Good governance).

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, Effective and Well-led which contain those requirements.

The ratings from the previous comprehensive inspection for those key questions not looked at on this occasion were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection. 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.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for 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.