St Clare's Care Home

St Clare’s Care Home is a residential care home providing personal and nursing care to up to 60 people living with dementia and age-related frailties, some people had a learning disability. At the time of the inspection, the service was supporting 59 people.

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

Quality assurance processes were not routinely documented to ensure effective management oversight of the running of the service. Audits did not always identify concerns found at this inspection, such as, conflicting care plans and omissions in care records.

People’s health risks were not always appropriately assessed with plans to reduce risks. Care plans were not always consistent to guide staff on how to meet people’s needs. This included providing safe support with swallowing difficulties and pressure area care.

People with a learning disability were supported well by staff, however, their planned care was documented in an outdated manner. Care plans did not always guide staff on how to support people when they showed distress or anxieties. Care plans did not always consider people’s communication needs when they were unable to verbalise their wishes.

People were protected from the COVID-19 pandemic and other infectious diseases by good staff practices. People were kept safe by staff who understood their responsibilities to recognise and report safeguarding concerns. People received their medicines in a person centred and timely way, staff were trained and assessed as competent before administering people’s medicines.

People spoke highly of the support they received. People told us there were enough staff to support them and our observations confirmed this. Comments included, “They are very nice to me the staff, they look after my health very well, they call the doctor for me if I need that.” And, "Having the staff around is a blessing, they come on your beck and call."

People were treated with dignity and respect, and their independence was promoted by staff. A staff member said, “The best thing about working here is looking after the residents here, it can be really rewarding and lovely. I always think if it was my own family member, I would want them treated well.” We saw staff speaking with and interacting with people in a dignified and respectful way throughout the inspection.

People were supported by staff who were trained and skilled appropriately. Staff spoke highly of the learning opportunities on offer. One staff member said, “The training here is brilliant, can’t fault that. I have had a lot of training, more than other workplaces. We had interactive dementia training recently, it was amazing, so worth doing.” There was a high retention of staff, many of whom had worked at the service a long time. A relative commented, “Stable core staff and team leaders, their workers’ eyes look around and are quick to spot what is going on.”

People and their relatives told us they knew how to complain and felt comfortable to so do if necessary. The registered manager was highly regarded by people’s relatives and staff. They told us they were able to approach the registered manager with suggestions and felt listened to. Comments included, “[Registered manager], along with [deputy manager] are amazing. Very amenable. They both get out and about, they engage with the teams and the residents.” And, “If you have any concerns about the residents we can talk to [registered manager], they listen to us and asks us for suggestions, we can talk to them any time and they consider what we say.”

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.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people. We considered this guidance as there were people using the service who have a learning disability and or who are autistic.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 4 January 2022 and this is the first inspection. The last rating for the service under the previous provider was good, published on 4 June 2019.

Why we inspected

This is the first inspection for this newly registered service.

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.

Enforcement and recommendations

We have identified breaches in relation to safe care and treatment and good governance at this inspection.

We have made a recommendation about person-centred care planning.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.