Archived: Sovereign Lodge Care Centre

Updated 19 May 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 was planned to check 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 inspection took place on 30 March and 1 April 2016 and was unannounced.

The inspection team consisted of two inspectors and a specialist advisor who was a training consultant with specialist knowledge of caring for people living with a dementia.

Before our inspection we reviewed the information we held about the home. We considered information we held about the service this included safeguarding alerts that had been made and notifications which had been submitted. A notification is information about important events which the provider is required to tell us about by law.

On this occasion we did not ask the provider to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

During the inspection we spoke with four people who lived in the service who could share their views on their care, eight relatives who were visiting on the day of the inspection. We also spoke with two visiting health care professionals who were attending the service.

In addition we spoke with various staff including the registered manager, the deputy manager, the chef, the activities co-ordinator, two registered nurses, two members of the housekeeping team, the administrator and five care staff. After the inspection we spoke with another health care professional from the community health team.

Some people were unable to speak with us. Therefore we used other methods to help us understand their experiences. We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI) during the day on the first floor. SOFI is a specific way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.

We observed care in communal areas to get a full view of care and support provided across all areas, and in individual rooms. We observed lunch and breakfast sitting with people in the dining room in both areas of the home. The inspection team spent time observing people in areas throughout the home and were able to see the interaction between people and staff. We attended a mid - morning management meeting that was held each day.

We reviewed a variety of documents which included six care plans and associated risk and individual need assessments. This included ‘pathway tracked’ people living at Sovereign Lodge Care Centre. This is when we looked at people’s care documentation in depth and obtained their views on how they found living at the home. It is an important part of our inspection, as it allowed us to capture information about a sample of people receiving care.

We looked at four staff recruitment files, and records of staff training and supervision. We read medicine records and looked at policies and procedures, record of complaints, accidents and incidents and quality assurance records.

Updated 19 May 2016

Sovereign Lodge Care Centre provides facilities and services for up to 64 older people who require personal or nursing care. The service is purpose built and provides accommodation and facilities over three floors. People live in single rooms with en-suite toilets and showers are also available in most rooms. The ground floor provides care for up to 26 people whose main nursing needs are related to physical health needs. This includes people who have had a stroke or live with a chronic health condition like Multiple Sclerosis, Diabetes or Chronic Obstructive Airways Disease. The first floor provides nursing care for up to 27 people with a dementia or mental health disorder. Both nursing units can also provide end of life care with the support of community specialist s. The second floor provides personal care for people with health and mobility problems related to older age. People on this floor can be independent requiring minimal support from care staff.

At the time of this inspection 25 people were living on the ground floor and 25 people were on the first floor with six people living on the second floor. This inspection took place on 30 March and 1 April 2016 and was unannounced.

The service had a registered manager in place. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission 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 quality monitoring systems needed further development to ensure they were used to ensure best practice and to identify shortfalls and demonstrate effective responses. This included the provision of suitable guidelines for medicine administration and accurate records for the application of topical creams in order to demonstrate staff delivered these in a consistent way. In addition some care documentation was not completed contemporaneously or consistently. This could lead to staff not having up to date information on people’s needs and care provided.

People were looked after by staff who knew and understood their individual needs well. Staff were attentive, treated people with kindness and compassion and supported them to maintain their independence. They showed respect and maintained people’s dignity. All feedback received from people and their representatives were very positive about the care, the atmosphere in the service and the approach and openness of the staff and registered manager. Comments included, “Everything is brilliant now. I have seen this home become an excellent place with caring staff and a manager who listens and changes things when they need to be changed.”

All feedback from visiting professionals was positive. They told us staff work with them to improve outcomes for people and were keen to learn new approaches when working with people living with a dementia.

Staff had a good understanding of safeguarding procedures and knew what actions to take if they believed people were at risk of abuse. Staff understood the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). Senior staff had an understanding of DoLS and what may constitute a deprivation of liberty and followed correct procedures to protect people’s rights.

Staff were provided with a full induction and training programme which supported them to meet the needs of people. Staffing arrangements ensured staff worked in such numbers, with the appropriate skills that people’s needs could be met in a timely and safe fashion. The registered nurses attended additional training to update and ensure their nursing competency.

People were given information on how to make a complaint and said they were comfortable to raise a concern or give feedback. A complaints procedure and comment cards were readily available for people to use.

Staff monitored people’s nutritional needs and responded to them. Preferences and specific diets were provided. People were supported to take part in a range of activities maintain their own friendships and relationships. Staff related to people as individuals and took an interest in what was important to them.

Feedback was regularly sought from people, relatives and staff. People were encouraged to share their views on a daily basis and satisfaction surveys had been completed. The management style fostered in the home was transparent listened and responded to people and staff’s views.