Archived: Kingston Care Home

Updated 16 April 2016

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This unannounced focused inspection was undertaken by an inspector and a specialist pharmacist inspector on 15 March 2016. This inspection was arranged to check that improvements to meet legal requirements planned by the provider after our comprehensive inspection in October 2015 had been made. We inspected the service against two of the five questions we ask about services: Is the service effective? Is the service responsive?

Before our inspection we reviewed the information we held about the service, this included the provider’s action plan, which set out the action they would take to meet legal requirements.

During our inspection we visited the home and looked at records relating to the administration of medicines and people’s care plans. We observed care provided by staff. We also spoke with three people living at the home, two members of staff, the activities co-coordinator and the manager.

Updated 16 April 2016

We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection of this service on 14 October 2015 and three breaches of legal requirements were found. This was because the provider did not have suitable arrangements in place relating to medicines covertly administered. This meant professional authorisation was not always gained and could lead to people receiving their medicines inappropriately. We also found people were not always involved in their care plans which could result in them receiving care that was inappropriate or that did not meet their care needs. The provider also did not give people enough opportunities to participate in meaningful activities that reflected their social interests.

After the comprehensive inspection, the provider wrote to us to say what they would do to meet legal requirements in relation to the breaches.

We undertook a focused inspection on the 15 March 2016 to check that they had followed their action plan and to confirm that they now met legal requirements. This inspection was unannounced.

This report only covers our findings in relation to these requirements. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for Kingston Care Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Kingston Care Home provides accommodation, nursing and personal care for up to 67 older people. The service specialises in care and support of older people who may be living with dementia.

At the time of this inspection the service did not have a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The service had appointed a new manager who had been in post for two months, and it was anticipated they would become the registered manager. The delay was a result of many of the current providers’ homes changing to a new provider. It was anticipated the new provider would make applications on mass to register all new managers. This was with the CQC’s agreement.

During our focused inspection we found the provider had followed their action plan. We saw legal requirements had been met as the provider now had systems in place to ensure suitable arrangements for medicines that were administered covertly. People and their relatives were being actively engaged in the writing of people’s care plans. The home had also increased the number and range of activities available to people in order to better meet their needs.

Sufficient action has been taken to meet the legal requirements made at the last inspection, and we have therefore changed the ratings for ‘effective’ and ‘responsive’ from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’. However, we have been unable to change the overall rating of the service as the categories of ‘safe’ and ‘well-led’ remain at the rating of ‘requires improvement’.