3 October 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Oaktree Lodge Residential Home is a residential care home providing accommodation and personal care to up to 34 people. At the time of our inspection there were 26 people living at the service. Oaktree Lodge Residential Home provides support to older people with a range of health and social care needs, including some people who were living with dementia.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Medicines were not always managed safely, or records did not always evidence this. Action was taken during and immediately after the inspection to make improvements.
We found no evidence that people had been harmed, however improvements were required to protect people from the risk of infection and cross contamination. We made a recommendation for the provider to comprehensively review and prioritise the repairs and improvements required at the service to mitigate the risks to the health, safety and welfare of people using the service.
Although systems were in place to monitor and improve the quality of the service, these needed to be embedded and monitored for effectiveness. Action plans ensured tasks were completed and improvements were shared with the staff team. Staff worked in partnership with other professionals to ensure people’s needs were effectively met.
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.
People’s capacity to consent to their care and specific treatments had been assessed and decision making processes were documented.
People were kept safe from avoidable harm because staff knew them well and understood how to protect them from abuse. The service worked with other agencies to do so. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it.
There were enough staff to support people, and staff were safely recruited. People were supported by staff who had the training, knowledge, skills and support to carry out their roles.
There had been recent changes throughout the staff team, but the management team were clear about the quality of care and service they aimed to provide. Staff were positive about the changes at the service.
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 21 March 2022) and there were breaches of regulation.
At this inspection we found improvements had been made, although there were further areas of improvement required. The service remains rated requires improvement. This is the second consecutive time the service has been rated requires improvement.
Why we inspected
This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.
We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and well led sections of this full report.
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 remains requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection.
Enforcement
We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection.
We have identified a breach of regulations in relation to the safe management of medicines and identifying and mitigating environmental risks at this inspection. Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.
Follow up
We will meet with the provider following this report being published to discuss how they will make changes to ensure they improve their rating to at least good. We will work with the local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.