4 August 2020
During an inspection looking at part of the service
St Patrick’s House is a care home providing accommodation and personal care for up to eight people with a learning disability in one adapted building. At the time of the inspection six people were living in the home.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
At the last inspection we told the provider they needed to improve the way they supported people with medicines. At this inspection we found the provider had made the improvements necessary to meet legal requirements. Medicines were safely managed. People were supported to take the medicines they had been prescribed and staff completed records of the support they provided. Staff had received additional training and managers regularly checked to ensure the systems were working well.
The provider had developed systems to manage infection prevention and control, in line with national guidance. These systems were working well in practice.
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 requires improvement (published 11 March 2020) and there was a breach of regulation 12 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. 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 to the way medicines were managed and the provider was no longer in breach of regulation 12.
Why we inspected
We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection of this service on 6 February 2020. A breach of regulation 12 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 was found, and we served a warning notice against the provider.
We undertook this targeted inspection to check they had taken action to address issues in the warning notice in relation to medicines management. In addition, we looked at the infection control and prevention measures in place. This was conducted as part of our Thematic Review of infection control and prevention in care homes.
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.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for St Patrick’s House 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.