Updated 4 June 2019
This inspection:
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) 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 Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
The inspection was prompted in part by wider concerns about the provider and risk management across their registered respite services. The information shared with CQC indicated potential concerns about the management of ligature risks. This inspection examined those risks and the safety of the premises.
Inspection team:
This inspection was carried out by an Inspector and an Assistant Inspector.
Service and service type:
The Vicarage is a registered care home without nursing. The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
What we did:
Before the inspection, we reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. This included any notifications we had received from the service and feedback we requested from external agencies including the local authority and Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. We also spoke with commissioners and relevant teams for updates on their monitoring and oversight of this service.
Providers are required to send us key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We referred to this information to help plan our inspection.
During the inspection, we spoke with one person, a new support worker, and two support workers. We also spoke with two healthcare professionals, the service project lead and the registered manager. We also reviewed records related to three people’s care and records related to medicines management, health and safety and quality assurance.
Some information we requested was not available to view during our inspection, including the training matrix, recruitment files, incident records and the provider’s policies. We were told these records were stored at the provider’s head office. When we visited the provider’s head office the following day as part of our inspection activity, this information was not available. We confirmed our requests for information and received this information after the inspection.