Archived: Cheverels Care Home with Nursing

Updated 21 July 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 24 April 2015 and was unannounced. The inspection was carried out by two inspectors.

Before the inspection we reviewed all the information we held about the service. This included notifications regarding safeguarding, accidents and changes in the service. At the time of the inspection a Provider Information Record (PIR) had not been requested. 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. In order to gain further information about the service we spoke with two people living at the home and two visiting relatives. We also spoke with seven members of staff.

We looked around the home and observed care practices throughout the inspection. We looked at five people’s care records and the care they received. We reviewed records relating to the running of the service such as environmental risk assessments and quality monitoring audits.

We contacted a representative of the local authority’s contract monitoring team and the Clinical Commissioning Group involved in the care of people living at the home to obtain their views on the service.

Observations, where they took place, were from general observations. We also used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.

Updated 21 July 2015

Cheverels Care Home with Nursing was last inspected on 21 November 2013. The home was found not to be meeting all requirements in the areas inspected. We told the provider that improvements were required in the training provided to staff, the standard of record keeping and the systems in place to protect people against the risk of inappropriate or unsafe care and treatment. The provider wrote to us and told us the necessary improvements would be completed by 12 February 2014. We found the necessary improvements had been made.

When we visited there was no registered manager in post. The last manager left the service in February 2014. 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.

Cheverels Care Home with Nursing provides care and support for up to 16 older people. At the time of the inspection there were nine people living at the home.

The provider had systems in place to ensure the quality of the service was regularly reviewed and improvements were made. This meant that the care and support people received were regularly audited and areas for improvement recognised. The staff knew people’s needs well and the records relating to people’s care and support were up to date.

People could not fully tell us about how they experienced the support on offer but one person told us it was “nice here”. Relatives told us about how the staff looked after people and that people were treated with a great deal of kindness. They told us they considered people were safe living at Cheverals. We observed this to be the case.

Staff knew people’s routines and respected them. People’s care records confirmed what staff had told us about people’s preferred lifestyle. We observed that staff knew how to support people when they became anxious and had effective ways of supporting them.

The provider was meeting the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and assessments of people’s capacity had consistently been made. The staff at the home understood some of the concepts of the Act, such as people’s rights to make decisions for themselves.

The staff demonstrated a caring and compassionate approach to people living at the home. The atmosphere at the home was relaxed and staff and people living at the home appeared comfortable in each other’s company. People were offered choices at mealtimes such as where to sit and what to eat and the size of portion. This helped ensure people enjoyed their food and mealtimes were a pleasant experience

Relatives told us there were enough staff to meet people’s needs. The provider was able to demonstrate that additional staff were available to support people should their needs change or if extra support was required. There were activities provided and a weekly bus trip to local attractions

The staff told us they worked well as a team and enjoyed working at the home. They told us there was enough flexibility within their working hours to sit and talk with people and to do things that they knew interested them.