St Annes Residential Care Home

Updated 11 January 2024

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 Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection team consisted of 2 inspectors.

Service and service type

St Anne’s Residential Care Home is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing and/or personal care as a single package under 1 contractual agreement dependent on their registration with us. St Anne’s Residential Care Home is a care home without nursing care. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

The inspection was unannounced

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We reviewed a range of records. This included 5 people’s care records. We looked at records in relation to staff training and supervision. We looked at various other documentation in relation to the management of the service. We spoke to 6 people and 8 members of staff and the registered manager.

Following our visit to the service we looked at additional documents the registered manager sent us including risk assessments. We also spoke with the nominated individual to seek assurances regarding the lack of management oversight of the service. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

Updated 11 January 2024

About the service

St Anne's Residential Home is a residential care home providing personal care to up to 19 people. The service provides support to older people. At the time of our inspection there were 19 people using the service.

People’s experience of the service and what we found:

People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did not support this practice.

There was a lack of documentation in some areas of care, this meant people might receive inappropriate, ineffective, or unsafe care and the registered manager would not be aware of this. For example there was no plan to ensure people’s oral hygiene was managed. The registered manager had not always told CQC of incidents that were legally notifiable.

People were not always included in writing their care plans and staff struggled to use the care planning system, telling us they felt they needed more training. Staff were not able to access risk assessments for people for guidance.

The registered manager did not have oversight of the service as they had failed to carry out any audits, checks or reviews for 8 months. Staff said they needed more support in the form of supervisions and they wanted to see the registered manager more active in the home. Staff said they didn’t feel the registered manager acted on their complaints or concerns.

While the registered manager said she was always happy to talk to people, relatives, or staff, there had been no recent surveys or questionnaires sent out to prompt responses, meaning it was unclear what the majority of people and families felt about care at the home.

The provider’s staff training matrix showed staff training had not been kept up to date, and the registered manager acknowledged training was an issue. The registered manager said she checked staff competency by watching them provide care, but this was not recorded and staff said they were not aware of this.

The quality of the food provided by the service was inconsistent. Kitchen staff were unclear if anyone had allergies or special diets due to food intolerance, and relied on care staff to select the correct food for people. A person told us they bought in their own food as they didn’t feel the service was able to manage the diet they needed effectively.

People were mostly content at the home, although feedback from people varied. A person told us, “On the whole they [staff] are very nice.” Another person told us, “I don’t normally see [manager]. [Manager] is not about much.” They also told us, “The staff never normally check in with me. They don’t just come by and see if I’m ok.”

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 17 October 2019

Why we inspected

The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about neglect by staff, a lack of staff training and issues with oral hygiene and nutrition and hydration. CQC had received anonymous complaints about care at the home. A decision was made for us to inspect and examine those risks.

We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of effective and well-led only. For those key question not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

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

Enforcement and Recommendations

We have identified breaches in relation to safe care and treatment, notifications of incidents, good governance, and requirement to display rating.

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 effective care. 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.