St Catherine's Care Home

Updated 9 February 2022

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.

As part of CQC’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic we are looking at how services manage infection control and visiting arrangements. This was a targeted inspection looking at the infection prevention and control measures the provider had in place. We also asked the provider about any staffing pressures the service was experiencing and whether this was having an impact on the service.

This inspection took place on Tuesday 25th January 2022 and was announced. We gave the service one day’s notice of the inspection.

Updated 9 February 2022

About the service

St Catherine’s Care Home is a residential care home providing personal and nursing care to 26 people aged 65 and over at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to 55 people in one adapted building.

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

People benefitted from improvements in the safety of the service and were protected from abuse and avoidable harm. There were enough staff to care for people safely and people gave positive feedback about staff. Staff administered people’s medicines on time and as prescribed and referred people to other healthcare services when necessary.

Improvements had been made to the provider's quality assurance systems. Managers carried out regular audits and checks which identified potential concerns and areas for improvement.

The provider had appointed a new manager who took a proactive approach to driving improvements in the service. The manager was a visible presence in the home and we received positive feedback from staff, relatives and professionals working with them.

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.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 10 October 2019). The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected

The inspection was prompted in part due to the intelligence we held about potential risks to people’s safety. A decision was made for us to carry out this focused inspection and examine those risks.

This report only covers our findings in relation to the key questions, safe and well-led. The ratings from the previous comprehensive inspection for those key questions not looked at on this occasion were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

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.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for St Catherine’s Care Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.