The Spinney Care Home

Updated 30 March 2022

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

As part of this inspection we looked at the infection control and prevention measures in place. This was conducted so we can understand the preparedness of the service in preventing or managing an infection outbreak, and to identify good practice we can share with other services.

Inspection team

One inspector carried out the IPC inspection on the 18 January 2022. Two inspectors carried out the second part of the inspection on the 08 February 2022.

Service and service type

The Spinney Care Home is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as a single package under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

There was an interim manager in post who intends to register with the CQC, who was overseeing the day to day running of the home.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was unannounced.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) who work with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with four people who use the service and four relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with eight staff including the kitchen assistant, carers, senior carers, team leader, interim manager and the previous manager who had returned to their substantive post at another home owned by the provider. We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.

We reviewed a range of records including three people’s care records. We looked at three staff files in relation to recruitment and staff support and a range of records relating to how the service operated and was managed.

After the inspection

We received feedback from a healthcare professional who regularly visits the service and reviewed the providers policies and procedures.

Updated 30 March 2022

The Spinney Care Home is a residential care home providing personal care to up to 26 people. At the time of our inspection 20 people lived at the home. Some of those people lived with dementia.

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

Medicines were not always safely managed. Systems in place were not robust enough to identify errors or issues with the storage of medication. People felt safe living at The Spinney Care Home and staff understood their responsibility to keep people safe. Risks associated with people’s care were identified, assessed and well managed.

Some checks on the environment were not always effective, as they failed to identify issues we found, for example issues around infection prevention and control. People and relatives were happy with the care they received; staff felt supported by the management team. The manager was committed to addressing shortfalls identified during the inspection visit to improve the safety of the environment.

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 18 January 2018).

Why we inspected

We inspected and found there was a concern with infection, prevention and control, so we widened the scope of the inspection to become a focused inspection which included the key questions safe and well-led.

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 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 provider had taken action to mitigate the risks identified during the first day of inspection and had an action plan in place to continue to make the improvements needed.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.

The overall rating for the service has changed from good to requires improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

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

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.