Archived: Grassmere Residential Care Home

Updated 16 August 2017

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked 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.

This was a comprehensive inspection which took place on 28 and 29 June 2017 and was unannounced. The membership of the inspection team comprised of an inspector and an expert by experience with either professional or personal experience of supporting people with dementia. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

When planning our inspection we looked at the information we held about the service. This included notifications received from the provider about deaths, accidents/incidents and safeguarding alerts, which they are required to send us by law. The provider had submitted a Provider Information Return (PIR) form prior to our inspection visit. The PIR is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the services does well and improvements they plan to make. We also contacted the Local Authority commissioning service for any relevant information they may have to support our inspection. We also looked at the Health Watch website, which provides information on care homes.

During our visit to the home we spoke with six people who use the service, three relatives, three care staff members, a visiting health care professional and the registered manager. Many of the people living at Grassmere had limited or fluctuating capacity and were unable to give in-depth answers to all of our questions. Therefore, we used an observational tool called Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI), which we used to help us collect evidence about the experience of people who use services, especially where people were not able to tell us verbally.

We looked at the care records of four people and three staff files as well as the medicine management processes and records that were maintained by the provider about recruitment and staff training. We also looked at records relating to the management of the service and a selection of the service’s policies and procedures to check people received a quality service.

Updated 16 August 2017

This inspection took place on 28 and 29 June 2017 and was an unannounced comprehensive rating inspection. At the last inspection on 11 December 2015, the service was rated ‘Requires Improvement’, with particular focus in the key questions of ‘was the Service, Caring, Responsive and Well-Led’. At this inspection we found the provider had made improvements in the key questions of Caring and Responsive, but was rated as requires improvement in Safe and Well Led.

Grassmere Residential Care Home is a 26 bed care home. At the time of our inspection there were 24 people living at the home.

There was a registered manager in post. 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.

People were not always kept safe and secure, and risks assessments were not always adhered to by members of staff.

People received their medicines safely and as prescribed and were supported by sufficient numbers of staff to ensure that risk of harm was minimised.

Staff had been recruited appropriately and had received relevant training so that they were able to support people with their individual care and support needs.

Staff sought people’s consent before providing care and support. Staff understood when the legal requirements of the Mental Capacity Act (2005) and the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) should be followed.

People’s rights to privacy and dignity was respected and upheld by the staff that supported them.

People had a variety of food, drinks and snacks available throughout the day. They were able to choose the meals that they preferred to eat.

People were supported to stay healthy and had access to health care professionals as required. They were treated with kindness and compassion and there were positive interactions between staff and the people living at the location.

People’s choices and independence were respected and promoted. Staff responded appropriately to people’s support needs. People received care from staff that knew them well and benefitted from opportunities to take part in activities that they enjoyed.

Relatives and staff were confident about approaching the registered manager if they needed to. People and relatives views on the quality of the service were gathered and used to support service development.