This inspection took place on 8 September 2015 and was unannounced. At the last inspection on 17 September 2013 we found the service was meeting the regulations we inspected.
Esk Hall Care Home provides residential accommodation and personal care for up to 20 older people. On the day of the inspection there were nine people living in the home. The home is located in the village of Sleights and is surrounded by attractive grounds. The home does not provide nursing care.
The home had 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.
Staff were able to tell us what they would do to ensure people were safe and people told us they felt safe at the home. The home had sufficient numbers of suitable staff to care for people safely and they were safely recruited.
Staff had received training to ensure that people received care appropriate for their needs. Training was up to date in mandatory areas such as infection control, health and safety, food hygiene and medicine handling and also in specialist areas of health care appropriate for the people being cared for.
Staff had received up to date training in the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005 and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). Staff understood that people should be consulted about their care and that they should assume that a person had capacity to make decisions. They understood what needed to happen to protect the best interests of people whose capacity was impaired.
People’s needs related to eating and drinking were met. People enjoyed the meals and they were of a good quality. However, people were not asked for their views about the menu and they were not consulted for their views when the menu was changed.
People were treated with kindness and compassion. We saw staff had a good rapport with people whilst treating them with dignity and respect. Staff had a good knowledge and understanding of people’s needs and worked together as a team. Care plans provided information about people’s individual needs and preferences.
People told us they were well cared for, however; they said they were sometimes bored, with little to entertain them. The registered manager was developing a plan to address this. We have made a recommendation about this.
People told us their complaints were responded to, however the results of complaint investigations were not always clear. People’s satisfaction with the outcome not always recorded so that the registered manager could not be sure they were responding to people’s concerns appropriately.
People who lived in the home, staff and visitors had raised concerns that the registered manager was sometimes absent from site due to other commitments, and that the quality of leadership was compromised when this happened. However, the registered manager had responded to these concerns and had put plans in place to address this. The registered manager and deputy had recently ensured that there was a management presence within the home at all times.
Quality assurance systems were in place. Some auditing was informal and meant that it was difficult for the service to use the information gathered to plan future improvements. For a home which was caring for nine people we judged that this did not pose a significant risk to people’s wellbeing.