About the service Oak Lodge Care Home is a care home providing personal and nursing care for up to 71 older people, some of whom were living with dementia. There were 62 people living at Oak Lodge Care Home at the time of the inspection. It accommodates people in one adapted building with an enclosed garden.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
The provider had experienced significant staffing challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The registered manager had put measures in place to promote staff recruitment, retention and wellbeing in response. The registered manager told us these challenges were ongoing.
There were enough staff in place to meet people’s needs. People’s needs were assessed and monitored to help ensure appropriate staffing numbers were deployed.
The registered manager was working in response to feedback from staff in relation to staffing levels and the use and quality of agency staff. They had put measures in place to increase staffing contingencies and improve communication when new or agency staff were working.
Staff were very attentive and knew people well. Staff told us that they were very busy in their role but worked to ensure this did not negatively impact on the care people received.
Support plans viewed contained appropriate information about people's nutrition and hydration needs. Staff spoken to also had a good understanding of people and the specific support they needed around eating and drinking.
The registered manager had improved resilience and contingency to staffing arrangements to ensure people's dietary needs were met. This included training staff to cover kitchen duties in an emergency and developing easy to follow recipes which auxiliary kitchen staff could follow.
There were appropriate policies and procedures in place to mitigate risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The service had gone to great lengths to facilitate visits and promote people’s wellbeing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
There were effective systems in place to oversee the maintenance and safety of 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
The last rating for this service was good (published 27 September 2018).
Why we inspected
We undertook this targeted inspection to follow up on specific concerns which we had received about the service. The inspection was prompted in response to concerns received about staffing levels, support people received with eating and drinking and maintenance of the home. We decided to inspect to examine those concerns and check there were no wider associated risks.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) have introduced targeted inspections to follow up on Warning Notices or to check specific concerns. They do not look at an entire key question, only the part of the key question we are specifically concerned about. Targeted inspections do not change the rating from the previous inspection. This is because they do not assess all areas of a key question.
We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at serious risk of harm from the concerns raised. Please see the safe and effective sections of this full report.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for Oak Lodge 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 reinspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.