Background to this inspection
Updated
18 August 2016
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, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
This inspection visit took place on 20 and 21 July 2016. The inspection was unannounced. The inspection team consisted of one inspector and one expert by experience speaking with people to give their views about the service they received. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.
Before the visit we looked at the information we held about the service, which included ‘notifications’. Notifications are changes, events or incidents that the provider must tell us about.
We contacted commissioners for health and social care, responsible for funding some of the people who used the service and asked them for their views about the home. No concerns were expressed about the current provision of personal care to people using the home .
During the inspection we spoke with nine people who used the service, the registered manager, the deputy manager and two care workers. The registered manager was present at the beginning of the inspection. We gave a feedback of our findings to the deputy manager .
We also looked in detail at the care and support provided to three people who used the service, including their care records, audits on the running of the service, staff training, staff recruitment records and medicine administration records.
Updated
18 August 2016
The inspection took place on 20 and 21 July 2016. The visit was unannounced.
Geraint House is a residential home which provides care to people with mental health needs. It is registered to provide care for up to 11 people. At the time of our inspection there were 11 people living at the home.
There was a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The registered manager responsible for nursing was managing the service at the time of the inspection.
People using the service we spoke with said they thought the home was safe. Staff had been trained in safeguarding (protecting people from abuse) and understood their responsibilities in this area.
People's risk assessments provided staff with information of how to support people safely.
People using the service told us they thought medicines were given safely and on time.
Staff were not always subject to robust character checks to ensure they were appropriate to work with the people who used the service.
Staff had been trained to ensure they had the skills and knowledge to meet people's needs though more training was needed with regard to people's health conditions.
Staff generally understood their main responsibility under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) to allow, as much as possible, people to have an effective choice about how they lived their lives.
People had plenty to eat and drink and everyone told us they liked the food served.
People's health care needs had been protected by referrals to health care professionals when necessary.
People told us they liked the staff and got on well with them, and we saw many examples of staff working with people in a friendly and caring way.
People and their representatives were involved in making decisions about their care, treatment and support.
Care plans were individual to the people using the service and usually covered their health and social care needs, though more detail was needed to ensure specific health advice was discussed with people and included in care plans.
There were sufficient numbers of staff to ensure that people's needs were responded to in good time and on-call arrangements in place if more staff were needed.
Activities were organised to provide stimulation for people and they could take part in activities in the community if they chose.
People told us they would tell staff if they had any concerns and were confident they would be followed up to meet their needs.
People, staff and a healthcare professional we spoke with were satisfied with how the home was run by the registered manager.
Management carried out audits and checks to ensure the home was running properly to meet people's needs, though not all essential systems had been audited.