This inspection was carried out 16 February 2016 and was unannounced. Ferndale Residential Home provides care and accommodation up to 30 people, some of whom are living with dementia. At the time of our inspection there were 30 people living at the home.
The home had a registered manager in post at the time of our inspection, however they were absent from the service on the day of this inspection. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) 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.
There were effective processes in place to manage people’s medicines. However, medicines were not always administered in a safe way.
Staff were aware of the safeguarding process. Personalised risk assessments were in place to reduce the risk of harm to people, as were risk assessments connected to the running of the home, and these were reviewed regularly. Accidents and incidents were recorded and the causes of these analysed so that preventative action could be taken to reduce the number of occurrences.
There were enough skilled, qualified staff to provide for people’s needs. The necessary recruitment and selection processes were in place and the provider had taken steps to ensure that staff were suitable to work with people who lived at the home. They received training to ensure that they had the necessary skills to care for and support the people who lived at the home and were supported by way of supervisions and appraisals.
People had been involved in determining their care needs and the way in which their care was to be delivered. Their consent was gained before any care was provided and the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and associated Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards were met.
People had enough variety of nutritious food and drink available to them. However, there were not always choices available that reflected people’s individual dietary requirements and people were not always supported to eat their meal in a way that enhanced the mealtime experience for them
Staff were kind and caring and protected people’s dignity. Staff treated people with respect and supported people in a way that allowed them to be as independent as possible.
There was an effective complaints system in place. Information was available to people about how they could make a complaint should they need to and the services provided at the home. People were assisted to access other healthcare professionals to maintain their health and well-being.
People and staff were encouraged to attend meetings with the manager at which they could discuss aspects of the service and care delivery. People were asked for feedback about the service to enable improvements to be made. There was an effective quality assurance system in place.
During this inspection we identified that there had been a breach of Regulation 12 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 as people’s medicines were not always administered in a safe way. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.