Background to this inspection
Updated
29 January 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 18 January 2022 and was announced. We gave the service one day’s notice of the inspection.
Updated
29 January 2022
About the service
Kendal Care Home is a care home providing accommodation and personal and nursing care to 90 people at the time of the inspection. The home accommodates up to 120 people in three units. One unit specialises in supporting people who are living with dementia. Accommodation is arranged over three floors and the home has passenger lifts to help people access the accommodation on the upper floors.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People were safe and protected from abuse. The provider used thorough recruitment procedures to check new staff were suitable to work in the service. There were enough staff to meet people’s needs. The provider had identified and managed risks to people’s safety. We were not fully assured that all staff were consistently using Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) effectively and safely. The provider took immediate action to ensure proper use of PPE. Medicines were managed safely and people received their medicines as they needed. We have made a recommendation about the management of some medicines. The provider had systems to learn from incidents to further improve the safety of the service.
People received person-centred care which promoted a good quality of life. The provider was committed to the continuous improvement of the service. They monitored the quality and safety of the service and took account of people’s feedback to further improve the service. The provider understood and acted on their responsibilities under the duty of candour. The registered manager and staff worked cooperatively with other services to ensure people received appropriate care.
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 14 February 2019).
Why we inspected
The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about areas of care and treatment including medicines and in part by a notification of a specific incident. As a result, this inspection did not examine the circumstances of the incident. The information CQC received about the incident indicated concerns about unsafe medicines management, this inspection examined those risks. 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.
We found evidence during this inspection that the provider had made improvements to how medicines were managed. Please see the safe section of this full report.
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 remains good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
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.