2 March 2021
During an inspection looking at part of the service
About the service
Hill Grove is a residential care home providing personal and nursing care to 20 older people at the time of the inspection, some of whom live with dementia. Hill Grove is a listed former farmhouse located in the village of Cringleford near Norwich. At the time of our inspection there were 15 people living in the home.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Medicines were not always stored and administered as safely as possible. There were ongoing risks to people’s health which were not always fully planned for and recorded accurately.
There were some environmental risks to people, such as unsecured products and irregular fire safety checks.
There was not always sufficient oversight of the quality of the service and related records, to ensure that concerns were identified in a timely manner and acted upon. There were not always regular checks taking place of infection control procedures, care planning records and the safety of the environment.
The home was visibly clean and staff had access to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), however some improvement was required around cleaning schedules and guidance on PPE for visitors.
People and relatives felt that the home was safe. There were enough competent staff to keep people safe and they were recruited safely.
People in the home, relatives and staff were highly complementary about the management in place. The staff team worked well together and there was always someone to go to with any concerns if people had any. Staff felt very well supported by the organisation during the recent pandemic.
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 the service under the provider’s previous registration was Good (published on 14 December 2017). This is the first inspection under the current registration. As this is a first inspection and we did not inspect all the key questions, we are not providing an overall rating.
Why we inspected
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 coronavirus and other infection outbreaks effectively.
The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about the management of the home, including with regards to medicines and people’s care. A decision was made for us to inspect and examine 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.
We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the Safe and Well-led sections in this report.
You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this report.
Action was taken immediately after the inspection to mitigate risk and make improvements.
We have identified two breaches of regulation in relation to safety and governance 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.
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.