Brook House Residential Home

Updated 2 June 2021

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.

The registered manager informed us about infection control and prevention measures relating to relatives visiting people at the service. This was a targeted inspection looking at the infection control and prevention measures the provider has in place.

This inspection took place on 20 May 2021 and was unannounced.

Updated 2 June 2021

About the service

Brook House Residential Home is a residential care home for up to 20 people. At the time of this inspection 17 people were using the service who had a range of needs including dementia. Short term (respite) care was also provided and two people were receiving respite care.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

The service did not always follow the correct legal decision-making processes for people lacking capacity to make their own decisions about key areas, such as refusing medicines or sharing bedrooms. We also found some environmental challenges for people, such as those living with dementia or those at risk of falling.

Despite this, staff understood how to keep people safe and protect them from harm and abuse. Risks to people were managed, to ensure their safety and protect them from harm and they were protected by the prevention and control of infection. There were enough staff to meet people’s needs and checks were undertaken to make sure new staff were suitable to work at the service.

Staff had the right skills and training to carry out their roles. They were caring and treated people with kindness, respecting their privacy and dignity too. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

People were supported to stay healthy. Staff ensured they had a choice of food and had enough to eat and drink. They also helped people to access healthcare services when they needed to and supported their social needs through a variety of arrangements and activities.

There was strong leadership at the service who regularly sought feedback from people, relatives and staff, to improve the service. Since the last inspection the provider had made several changes to improve people’s experience. This included a new electronic care planning system and making changes to the environment to promote people’s safety and well-being.

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 August 2017).

During this inspection we have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the effective and well-led sections of this full report.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from our findings. However, the overall rating for the service has changed from Good to Requires Improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection. This is the fourth time since 2015 that the service has been rated Requires Improvement, although not all following consecutive inspections.

The provider confirmed soon after this inspection they had already acted, or had plans to address, the issues identified for improvement.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Brook House Residential Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

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.