Archived: Oban House

Updated 14 January 2015

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked whether the provider is 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 inspection took place on 05 November 2014 and was unannounced.

The inspection team was made up of three inspectors and an expert-by experience, whose expertise included residential, nursing and dementia homes. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

We spoke to six people who used the service, 12 relatives, 14 members of staff, the deputy manager and the manager. We observed the care and support being delivered and used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a specific way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us. We looked at nine people’s care records, four staff records and other documents which related to the management of the service such as training records and policies and procedures.

Before the inspection, we reviewed the information we held about the service, including notifications the provider has a duty to send us and the provider information return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.  

This report reflects how the service was being run by the provider, HC-One Limited, at the time of our inspection and is a true and accurate picture of what we found. From 13 November 2014 the service was sold and a new provider who is now responsible for the regulated activities at Oban House.

Updated 14 January 2015

Oban House provides nursing care for up to 61 people over the age of 65, some of whom are living with dementia. There were 41 people using the service at the time of our inspection. The registered manager left the service earlier in the year and the regional manager had been the acting manager in the interim period. At the time of our inspection we were made aware a new manager who had been appointed and was due to start in November 2014 when they would register with the Care Quality Commission (CQC).  A registered manager is a person who has registered with the CQC to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibilities for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Our inspection took place on 5 November 2014 and was unannounced. We told the provider we would be returning the next day to continue.

During our last full inspection on 28 April 2014 we found the provider was not meeting Regulations 17, 18 and 20 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010.  We found the provider did not always assist people to express their views and choices and what was important to them. People were not always given the opportunity to engage in meaningful activities. There were not always suitable arrangements for obtaining peoples consent and some people’s records were incomplete or incorrect. We asked the provider to tell us what action they were going to take to make improvements in these areas. During this inspection we saw that improvements had been made.

People told us they felt safe and staff were kind, caring and respected their privacy and dignity. They thought that overall the care they received was good and that staffing levels had improved. The recruitment procedures were appropriate and at the time of our inspection staffing levels were based on people’s needs.

Most people were positive about the meals and said they had a choice of food. We observed improvements had been made to the dining experience for people on two floors. They were underway on another floor but had not been fully implemented so people did not always receive the same level of attention from staff at mealtimes.

There were lots of different activities for people to be involved in. The service encouraged people to be involved to stop them from feeling lonely or isolated.

People were involved in planning their care. People’s records were person centred and informed staff about how they would like to be cared for. People had their healthcare needs and risk assessments regularly reviewed but in a few care records information was not always easily to hand to support staff to manage risks.

Medicines were managed safely and the provider was aware of the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act (2005) and the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) to help ensure people’s rights were protected.

The service gave people information about how to make a complaint and people told us they knew who to complain to. We saw the provider took peoples complaints seriously and responded and investigated them appropriately. Where issues were identified steps were taken to make things better and stop the same things happening again.

The provider had a quality assurance process in place that allowed them to identify issues and areas they could improve on.