Archived: Springfield House

Updated 5 June 2015

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 6 and 13 March 2015. The inspection was unannounced and was carried out by one inspector.

Before the inspection we looked at and reviewed the provider’s information return (PIR). This asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

As part of the inspection we spoke with representatives from the local authority for their opinion of the home. They have responsibility for funding and monitoring the quality of the service provided. They had no issues to raise with us. We looked at the statutory notifications we had been sent by the provider. A statutory notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send to us by law. We used this information to help us plan our inspection.

We spoke with six people who lived at the home and six relatives. We also spoke with the registered manager, the senior carer and four members of staff.

We looked at a sample of records including three people’s care plan, six people’s medicines records, staff training records, three recruitment records and quality assurance audits.

Updated 5 June 2015

This inspection took place 6 and 13 March 2015 and it was unannounced.

The home provides accommodation and personal care for a maximum of eighteen people. At the time of our inspection seventeen people lived at the home with one person in hospital. People who lived at the home may have a dementia related illness.

There was a registered manager in post who was present throughout our inspection. 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 Care Quality Commission are required to monitor the operation of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005 and the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). The provider had not followed the requirements of the MCA as it was identified that some decisions had been made without best interest discussions.

All the people we spoke with told us that they were happy and felt safe living at the home. They said that people were kind, caring and helped them pursue past times and leisure activities. The atmosphere in the home was calm and staff responded to people’s requests.

We found parts of the medicines management arrangements to be in need of improvement. Protocols were not in place to ensure people received medicines in a safe way and medicine records were not always accurate. Auditing systems were not in place which may have identified the shortfalls we found.

People told us that there was enough staff on duty to care for them and help meet their needs. Our observations during the inspection supported these comments. Safe recruitment processes were in place.

Systems were in place to protect people from the risk of harm. Staff we spoke with were aware of their responsibilities to protect people from the risk of abuse and knew the action they would need to take.

Staff knew about people’s care needs. We saw that people and their relatives were involved in planning their care. They were provided with training and supervision to help them provide care for people.

People had a choice of food and drinks and these were available throughout the day. Healthcare needs were met by visiting health professionals. Where concerns were identified medical advice was sought in areas such as nutrition and risks of falls.

The registered manager was open to people’s comments and had addressed any concerns and complaints raised. People were confident in the manager finding them to be approachable and supportive.

You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.