Archived: Knights Templar Court

Updated 25 May 2016

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 and 30 March 2016 and was unannounced. The inspection team consisted of two adult social care inspectors and one specialist professional advisor in caring for older people living with dementia.

During our inspection we spoke with five people who lived in the home, four visitors, three care staff, the deputy manager, the administrator and the manager. We 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. We observed care and support informally in communal areas and looked at the care records for five people. We also looked at records that related to how the home was managed such as staff rotas, staff training records, complaints records and staff recruitment records.

Before our inspection we reviewed all of the information we held about the home. We looked at notifications we had received. A notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We reviewed previous inspection reports. We did not ask the provider to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). 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. The manager therefore provided us with a range of documents, such as internal audits and quality assurance surveys, which gave us key information about the service and any planned improvements.

Updated 25 May 2016

Knights Templar Court is registered to provide care for up to 20 people. The home specialises in the care of older people living with dementia. At the time of the inspection 14 people were living at the home; two people were on short term stays. Accommodation is arranged over two floors.

The registered manager who was responsible for the home left the provider’s employment in December 2015. 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. A new manager was recruited in December 2015 and has begun the registration process with us.

This inspection took place on 24 and 30 March 2016 and was unannounced.

Staff understood people's needs and provided the care and support they needed. People said the home was a safe place. One person said “Yes, I do feel safe here.”

People were happy with the care they received. There were organised activities and people were able to choose to socialise or spend time alone. People liked the meals served in the home; mealtimes needed better organisation.

People interacted well with staff and spoke highly of them. One person said “All the care staff are very good, really nice friendly people.” There was a relaxed, homely atmosphere. There was laughter and chatter. People made choices about their day to day lives.

People received good support from health and social care professionals. Staff had built trusting relationships with people. People nearing the end of their lives received kind and compassionate care.

People, and those close to them, were involved in planning and reviewing their care and support. There was good communication with people's relatives. Relatives visited regularly, felt involved and said their views were listened to and acted on. One relative said “They always ask if you are happy with everything.”

Staff spoke highly of the care they were able to provide to people. One staff member said “I think we give people the care they need. People and their families seem happy.”

People liked and trusted the manager. All staff worked hard to provide a good level of care to people. The aims of the service were well defined and adopted by the staff team.

There were quality assurance processes in place to monitor care and safety and plan ongoing improvements but these were not fully effective. Some record keeping, such as accidents and incidents, needed improving. There were systems in place to share information and seek people's views about their care and the running of the home.

We found four breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. This was because medicine administration records were not always accurate and checks were not always completed to ensure medicines were still safe to use. People did not always have their legal rights protected when making decisions. Staff were not supervised in line with the provider’s policy and the provider’s quality assurance systems were not fully effective.

We found one breach of The Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009. This was because some significant events which had occurred in the home had not been reported in line with legal requirements. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.