St Mary's Residential Care Home

St Mary's is a residential care home which provides accommodation and personal care for up to 25 people. The service provides support to people aged 65 and over including people with physical disabilities and people living with dementia. At the time of our inspection care was being provided for 20 people in one adapted building. A chapel is situated towards the rear of the building.

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

People were protected from avoidable harm as risks to people's health and safety were identified and assessed. People and their relatives said they felt safe and were cared for by staff who knew them well. A person said, “I do feel safe, it’s a very nice home.” Medicines were managed safely, and people received their medicines as prescribed. People were protected from the risk of abuse and staff were aware of their safeguarding responsibilities and how to report concerns.

There were enough staff with the appropriate skills and training to meet people’s needs. Staff were recruited safely and received supervision where opportunities to develop and feedback about their practice were discussed. A staff member said, “[Registered manager] is wonderful, she is amazing. We have regular supervisions which cover talking about the people we support, our role, areas of improvement, wellbeing and training.”

People were treated with kindness, dignity and respect. Staff interactions with people were warm and caring. A health professional said, ‘They display a good knowledge of their residents and I witness kind and considerate care when I am in the home.’ People were observed in a homely environment adapted for their needs and were supported to drink enough and maintain a balanced diet. A relative said, ‘St Marys aims to respond to any dietary requests, provides a varied and high-quality diet with personal choice/requests catered for. [Person] enjoys their meals.”

Peoples' care plans contained clear information to enable staff to meet their needs; this included information about people's daily routines, how they liked to spend their time and what staff could do to support them. A staff member said, “Everyone is an individual, with their own preferences, and care should be personalised. Not one person is the same.” 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.

St Mary's residential care home was well-led by a management and staff team determined and driven to lead by example, and who were committed to quality and placing people at the heart of the service. Staff were motivated by and proud of the service. Governance was well-embedded into the running of the service. There was a strong framework of accountability to monitor performance and risk leading to the delivery of demonstrable quality improvements to the service. Learning from concerns and incidents was a key contributor to continuous improvement.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 22 November 2019 and this is the first inspection. The last rating for the service under the previous provider was Outstanding, published on 12 July 2019.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. 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.

We found the following examples of good practice.

Visiting was by arrangement and people were required to complete a due diligence checklist and instructed on the infection precautions required for visiting the home on arrival. Visiting professionals were allocated a separate room to the side of the main building (The Sacristy) to complete clinic appointments with the people living at the service. The home had utilised potential space both within the home and the garden to support social distanced visits by relatives.

There was clear signage in corridors and communal areas reminding people of the need to social distance and furniture had been arranged in accordance with this. The home had utilised the chapel to ensure that dining arrangements and activities could support social distancing guidelines.