Archived: Green Acres Nursing Home

Green Acres Nursing Home is a large purpose built property. The service provides care and accommodation for up to 62 people who require personal care and/or nursing. The service can support older people and people who are living with dementia. The service is close to all local amenities.

The registered provider works in partnership with the NHS to offer beds for people requiring rehabilitation following hospital discharge or admission from the community. There are NHS therapy staff on site and an NHS community nursing team who support this service for people requiring rehabilitation.

The home had a registered manager in place. 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.

Risks to people’s safety were not always assessed by staff. Monitoring records to ensure people’s health did not deteriorate or to prevent ill health was not always completed by staff. We saw people’s care plans were not always person centred and were not written in a way to describe their care, and support needs. We saw little evidence to demonstrate people had developed or agreed to their care plans.

Systems in place for the management of medicines so people received their medicines safely were not always appropriate.

We saw staff had not received supervision on a regular basis or had an annual appraisal. Staff had not always received training and therefore may not have had the skills and knowledge to provide support to the people they cared for.

There were systems and processes in place to protect people from the risk of harm. Staff were able to tell us about different types of abuse and were aware of action they should take if abuse was suspected. Appropriate checks of the building and maintenance systems were undertaken to ensure health and safety.

People told us there were enough staff on duty to meet people’s needs. We found safe recruitment and selection procedures were in place and appropriate checks had been undertaken before staff began work.

Staff did not always understand the Mental Capacity Act (2005) and the process to ensure people who lacked capacity to make their own decisions was not always followed or documented in peoples care plans.

There were positive interactions between people and staff. We saw staff treated people with dignity and respect. People told us overall they felt well cared for.

We saw people were provided with a choice of healthy food and drinks which helped to ensure their nutritional needs were met. People had good access to healthcare professionals and services. People’s independence was encouraged and their hobbies and leisure interests were individually assessed. We saw there was a range of activities available for people to join.

The registered provider had a system in place for responding to people’s concerns and complaints.

The new system in place to monitor and improve the quality of the service provided we saw was robust and will be effective once fully implemented.

We found the registered provider was breaching The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations. You can see the action we told the provider to take at the end of this report.