About the service Kibworth Court is a residential care home providing accommodation and personal care to 29 people aged 65 and over at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to 45 people accommodated over two floors.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
The service did not have robust systems and procedures in place to ensure the quality and safety of the service was maintained.
The safety, equipment and cleanliness in several people’s bedrooms placed them at risk of infection including COVID-19. There was not enough staff to ensure the required cleaning and maintenance of bedrooms was undertaken frequently enough.
Environmental safety concerns were found in communal areas. A cupboard and hair salon were not secured. These rooms presented risks to people’s health because of the products contained within them and their poor state of repair.
The provider was responsive to our concerns and took immediate action to address the concerns we identified.
People and relatives had not been offered opportunity to feedback on the quality of the service. Relatives were not always involved in the development and review of their relatives’ care needs.
People, their relatives and staff were complimentary about the registered manager who listened and communicated well with them.
Whilst several relatives raised concerns over staffing levels, we found there were enough experienced and qualified staff to safely meet people’s personal care needs, which were assessed and monitored well. Where people’s needs changed, prompt action was taken to ensure their health and well-being were maintained.
People were supported by safely recruited staff who were kind, considerate and knew them well. Staff understood and recognised signs of abuse, and how and who to report any concern to.
People received their medicines when they needed them, and accidents and incidents were reported and acted on.
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 policies and systems in the service supported this 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 good (published 3 January 2018)
Why we inspected
The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns we received in relation to safe care. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.
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. The overall rating for the service has changed from good to requires improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
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.
Whilst we found no evidence to support the concerns, we received prior to the inspection we did find concerns in other areas of the service during our inspection. We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.
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 Kibworth Court on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Enforcement
We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection. We will continue to discharge our regulatory enforcement functions required to keep people safe and to hold providers to account where it is necessary for us to do so.
We have identified breaches of regulation in relation to infection control, environmental safety and the governance arrangements at this inspection. We issued the provider with a warning notice relating to governance arrangements in place. Please see action we have told the provider to take at the end of the report.
Follow up
We will request an action plan for the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.