23 June 2021
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Higham House Nursing Home is a care home providing personal and nursing care to seven people aged 65 and over at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to 30 people in one adapted building.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Systems to monitor the quality and safety of the service were in place to ensure people received safe and person-centred care. However, this required time to be embedded into the service to ensure they were sustained, and improvements continued.
Mealtime experiences for people had improved, however, this needed to be maintained and monitored to build on the improvement.
Risks to people’s care were identified and plans to mitigate the risk were in place. There were sufficient staff deployed to meet people’s needs and people could be assured staff had been recruited safely.
Staff understood how to protect people from harm and followed good hygiene practices to prevent and control infection. Medicines were safely administered and stored.
People's needs were assessed, and care plans guided staff how to meet those needs. Further improvements were needed to care plans to ensure they detailed the support people required for their social and emotional well-being. People had access to activities, but more opportunities were needed so people could undertake activities geared towards their interests.
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.
Refurbishment plans were in place and improvements to the environment had been made. This needed to be sustained and improvements continued.
Based on our review of Safe, Effective and Well-led
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 11 February 2021) and there were multiple 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 and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.
The service remains rated requires improvement. This service has been rated requires improvement for the last four consecutive inspections.
Why we inspected
We carried out an announced focused inspection of this service on 12 January 2021. 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 safe care and treatment, person- centred care and good governance.
We undertook this unannounced 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, Effective and Well-led which contain those requirements.
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 ratings from the previous comprehensive inspection for those key questions not looked at on this occasion were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection. The overall rating for the service has remained requires improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Higham House Nursing Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
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 return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.