The Knights Care Home

Updated 8 April 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 care homes with outbreaks of COVID-19, we are conducting reviews to ensure that the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practice is safe and that services are compliant with IPC measures. This was a targeted inspection looking at the IPC practices the provider has 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 28 February 2022 and was unannounced.

Updated 8 April 2022

About the service

The Knights provides accommodation for up to 31 people. The home is situated close to the centre of St Annes on Sea. Accommodation within the home is situated on three floors. There is a passenger lift and stair case providing access to the upper floors. The service has two lounges and a dining room situated on the ground floor. A limited number of car parking spaces are available to the front of the building on a private forecourt. At the time of our inspection visit there were 19 people who lived at the home.

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

The manager and staff had a good understanding of supporting people safely during the current pandemic. A relative said, “Absolutely fantastic especially since COVID ‘kicked in’.” All the staff have been so supportive bearing in mind we cannot visit.” Also, a staff member said, “We have had that much infection control guidance and training and covid guidance we are confident in getting it right.” Staff demonstrated a good awareness of protecting people from harm or abuse. They were patient and responded to people’s needs quickly. Staff followed correct procedures to ensure people received their medicines safely as prescribed. Recruitment processes were thorough to ensure suitable staff were employed. Risk assessments were completed and reviewed to promote people's safety. The management team had a good system to ensure sufficient staff would be deployed appropriately to keep people safe.

The management team provided multiple opportunities to assist people, visitors and staff to feed back their experiences of living and working at the home. They had extensive auditing systems to maintain ongoing oversight of the home. Staff said they worked well as a team and people commented the home was well managed.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was good (published 04 April 2018).

Why we inspected

We wanted to assure ourselves the service remained safe since our last inspection and continued to be led well under the new manager.

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 coronavirus and other infection outbreaks effectively.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Knights 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.