1 August 2017
During a routine inspection
Pineapple Place has not had a registered manager in post since June 2017. 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. At the time of our inspection the acting manager was applying to CQC to become the registered manager. Since that time the acting manager has left the employment of the provider and another manager is in the process of applying to become registered with CQC as the Registered Manager.
People told us that they felt safe with the staff who supported them. Staff were aware of the need to keep people safe and understood their responsibilities to report allegations or suspicions of poor practice. Assessments had been undertaken to identify any potential risks to people and guidance was available for staff to follow to minimise those risks. Safe recruitment practices were in place. Medicines had not always been given as prescribed and there were unclear instructions for staff who supported people to use medicated skin creams. The systems in place to ensure medicines were managed safely were not effective.
Staff were provided with training to keep their knowledge and skills current. Staff told us that they had received a planned induction when they commenced working. All the staff demonstrated the need to gain people’s consent to care and support before providing assistance. People were provided with a good choice of food and the majority of people were supported to access relevant healthcare professionals when needed.
People were cared for by staff who knew them well and who they described as kind and compassionate. People expressed how they wanted their care to be delivered. People’s decisions and choices were respected by staff. People told us that they were treated with dignity and had their privacy respected.
People had been involved in the development of their care plans.. People told us they felt their views were taken into consideration and their choices accommodated where possible. People told us that they felt enabled to raise concerns and complaints and were confident that these would be investigated and acted upon.
People described the service as well-led and felt confident with the support they received. However staff did not feel that leadership was clear and did not feel as supported as they would like. Our inspection identified that the leadership was not effective. The systems in place to monitor and improve the quality and safety of the service had not identified issues affecting people’s safety or the impact on the quality of the service. Subsequently they had not driven forward improvements or ensured that risks were mitigated appropriately.
We found that the assessment and the monitoring of the service did not meet the required standards and so the provider is in breach of Regulation 17, of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.