19 October 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Elizabeth Court is a residential care home providing personal and nursing care to up to 44 people. The service provides support to older people. At the time of our inspection there were 42 people using the service. Some of who live with dementia. Elizabeth Court accommodates people across two separate floors, each of which has separate adapted facilities.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Improvements were needed to the management of people’s medicines. Additional improvements were needed to the processes in place for the review, monitoring and oversight of records in use.
Sufficient staff were on duty to meet the needs of people. Systems were in place to safeguard people from harm and regular checks were carried out to ensure people’s living environment was safe. A system was in place to assess and plan for known risk to people.
A new manager had been appointed and had been in post for 5 weeks. An improvement plan was in place to make changes to the service. Work was underway to review and update procedures with the service. Staff worked with local health care professionals to meet people’s needs.
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 majority of policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
Improvements had been made in the management of infection prevention and control measures since the last inspection.
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 requires improvement (published 14 March 2022) and there were breaches of regulation. 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 in some areas, however more improvements were needed and the service was still in breach of regulations.
Why we inspected
We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection of this service on 28 January and 8 February 2022. Breaches of legal requirements were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve person centred care and good governance.
We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe and Well-led which contain those requirements. For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.
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.
The overall rating for the service has remained requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection. Although some improvements had been made since the last inspection, we found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements in relation to medicines management and oversight of the service. You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Elizabeth Court on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Enforcement and Recommendations
We have identified breaches in relation to medicines management and oversight of the service. We have made a recommendation in relation to staff records. Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.
Follow up
We will meet with the provider following this report being published to discuss how they will make changes to ensure they improve their rating to at least good. We will work with the local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.