Archived: Three Willows Residential Care Home

Updated 7 April 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.

Before we visited the home we checked the information that we held about the service and the service provider. This included any notifications and safeguarding alerts. We also contacted the local borough contracts and commissioning team that had placements at the home, the local Healthwatch and the local borough safeguarding team. Before the inspection the provider completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

The inspection team consisted of two inspectors, a specialist advisor with a background in nursing and dementia care.

During our inspection we observed how the staff interacted with people who used the service and also looked at people’s bedrooms and bathrooms with their permission. We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a specific way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us. We spoke with six people who lived in the service and two relatives during the inspection. We spoke with the provider, the principal officer, two senior care workers, one team leader, two care workers and the chef. The registered manager was on annual leave at the time of our inspection. We looked at five care files, staff duty rosters, four staff files, a range of audits, minutes for various meetings, eight medicines records, accidents and incidents, training information, safeguarding information, health and safety folder, and policies and procedures for the service.

Updated 7 April 2016

We inspected Three Willows Residential Care Home on 15 March 2016. This was an unannounced inspection.

Three Willows Residential Care Home provides accommodation for up to 21 older people who have dementia care needs. There were 19 people living at the home when we visited. There was a registered manager at the service however they were on annual leave at the time of our inspection. 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

The experiences of people who lived at the home were positive. People told us they felt safe living at the home, staff were kind and the care they received was good. We found staff had a good understanding of their responsibility with regard to safeguarding adults.

People’s needs were assessed and their preferences identified as much as possible across all aspects of their care. Risks were identified and plans in place to monitor and reduce risks. People had access to relevant health professionals when they needed them. Medicines were stored and administered safely.

Staff undertook training and received regular supervision to help support them to provide effective care. Staff we spoke with had a good understanding of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). MCA and DoLS is law protecting people who are unable to make decisions for themselves or whom the state has decided their liberty needs to be deprived in their own best interests. People told us they liked the food provided and we saw people were able to choose what they ate and drank.

There were sufficient numbers of suitable staff employed by the service. Staff had been recruited safely with appropriate checks on their backgrounds completed.

People’s needs were met in a personalised manner. We found that care plans were in place which included information about how to meet a person’s individual and assessed needs. The service had a complaints procedure in place.

The service had a registered manager in place and a management structure with clear lines of accountability. Staff told us the service had an open and inclusive atmosphere and senior staff were approachable and accessible. The service had various quality assurance and monitoring mechanisms in place. These included surveys, audits and staff and resident meetings.