6 April 2022
During a routine inspection
Butts Croft House provides care and accommodation for up to 35 people. Whilst the majority of people who live at the home are older people living with dementia, the service also offers care and support to young people living with dementia. The home provides some temporary beds for people who have come from hospital for further care or assessment before going back to their own home. At the time of our visit there were 27 people living in the home.
People's experience of using this service and what we found
Following our last inspection, the provider had restructured to build more resilience into the management team and to ensure audit processes identified and addressed areas of improvement to ensure the quality and safety of the service. The provider had also re-introduced regular inspection visits by an external management consultant.
New systems introduced had brought about improvements in the management of medicines, infection control and the administrative practices of the home. However, the new quality assurance systems needed to be fully implemented and embedded to drive improvement and maintain standards in other areas of the home, such as risk management and care planning.
Staffing levels kept people safe and staff understood their responsibility to report any concerns about people or poor practice by other staff. Staff received the training needed to provide effective support and the provider encouraged staff to take further training to meet their specific responsibilities.
Staff understood people’s individual nutritional needs and snacks and drinks were readily available to encourage people to eat and drink. Where people were unwell or lost weight, medical advice was routinely sought and followed.
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 but improvements needed to be made to evidence people's mental capacity to consent to their care had always been assessed effectively.
Staff promoted a homely environment and relatives spoke of a friendly and welcoming atmosphere in the home. People's privacy and dignity was maintained, and staff treated people with respect. Improvements were being made to ensure people had opportunities for engagement in different activities in the home and there were plans to extend the activities further.
The provider and management team were responsive to the feedback provided during our inspection and were open about the further improvements that were still to be made.
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 November 2021) and there were breaches of regulations. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulation, but further improvements were still required. This service has been rated requires improvement for the last seven consecutive inspections.
Why we inspected
This inspection was carried out to follow up on action we told the provider to take at the last inspection.
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.
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 continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.