Stocks Hall is located on a main road position in a residential area of Burscough, within walking distance of the village centre, where all amenities are available. The home accommodates up to 52 people who need help with personal or nursing care, as well as those who are living with dementia. Accommodation is arranged over two floors. The upper floor is accessible by a staircase and passenger lift. Parking is available at the home. Public transport links are within easy reach for access to the surrounding areas. Stocks Hall Nursing Home is owned by Stocks Hall Care Homes Limited.
We last inspected this location on 3rd October 2013, when we found the service to be compliant with the regulations we assessed at that time. This unannounced inspection was conducted on 16th February 2015, when the registered manager was on duty. 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.
New employees were guided through a detailed induction programme and were supported to gain confidence and the ability to deliver the care people needed. However, our findings demonstrated that the registered person did not always protect people against the risks of receiving inappropriate or unsafe care or treatment, by means of managing risks relating to people’s health, welfare and safety.
The staff team were confident in reporting any concerns about a person’s safety and were competent to deliver the care and support needed by those who lived at Stocks Hall. Recruitment practices adopted by the home were robust. This helped to ensure that only suitable people were appointed to work with this vulnerable client group.
The premises were clean and well-maintained throughout. There were no unpleasant smells, except from the sluice room, where we found a clinical waste bin to be overflowing. This was addressed at the time of our inspection. However, our findings demonstrated that the registered person did not consistently protect people against the risk of acquiring an infection by means of maintaining appropriate standards of cleanliness and hygiene in relation to equipment used for those who lived at the home.
Systems and equipment within the home had been serviced in accordance with the manufacturers’
recommendations, to ensure they were safe for use. This helped to protect people from harm.
The staff team were provided with a wide range of learning modules and were regularly supervised. This helped to ensure those who worked at Stocks Hall were trained to meet people’s health and social care needs. Staff were kind and caring towards those they supported and people were helped to maintain their independence with their dignity being respected at all times.
We found the management of medications could have been better. Our findings demonstrated that the registered person did not consistently protect people against risks associated with the unsafe management of medicines, by means of making appropriate arrangements for the recording, using and safe administration of medicines.
We found several breaches of the Health and Social Care Act (2008) Regulted Activities Regulations. These related to care and welfare, medicines and infection control arrangements. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of this report.