Archived: Coniston Lodge Nursing Home

Updated 8 June 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 was planned to check whether the provider was 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 focussed inspection and took place on 8 and 9 May 2017. It was unannounced. This inspection was completed to check that safe systems were in place for the management of people’s medicines. We inspected the service against one of the five questions we ask about services: is the service safe. This is because, since our last inspection in January 2017, concerns had been raised with us about the way the service ordered and looked after people’s medicines and the use of thickening agents used in people’s drinks.

The inspection was undertaken by one medicines inspector.

Before our inspection we reviewed all the information about concerns relating to medicines that had been received by the Care Quality Commission since the last inspection.

During this inspection we spoke to the interim manager, deputy manager, three nurses, and three care staff. We looked at the arrangements for ordering, storing, and administering medicines. We looked at 29 people’s medicines administration records, and two people’s care records in relation to their medicines. We also looked at three recent medicines audits carried out by staff.

Updated 8 June 2017

We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection of this service on 10, 11 and 12 January 2017. Following this inspection, concerns were raised with us about the way the service ordered and looked after people’s medicines and the use of thickening agents used in people’s drinks. We undertook a focused inspection on the 8 and 9 May 2017 to check how medicines were looked after. This report only covers our findings in relation to this topic. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for ‘Coniston Lodge Nursing Home’ on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Coniston Lodge Nursing Home is a nursing home and is part of Lifestyle Care Management Ltd. It provides accommodation for up to 92 older people in single rooms. The service has four units but at the time of our inspection only three were in use. The home is situated within a residential area of the London Borough of Hounslow. At the time of our visit there were 42 people using the service.

At the time of the inspection there was no registered manager in post. An interim manager had been in post for two weeks before the inspection. 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.

The provider had appropriate processes in place for the ordering of medicines.

Systems were in place for the safe administration of medicines.

Medicines were stored safely and securely.