Archived: London Care (Toldene Court)

Updated 13 March 2019

The inspection:

• We carried out our inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. Our inspection checked 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.

Inspection team:

• Our inspection was completed by one inspector and an expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. Their area of expertise was as a family carer of older people and people with dementia.

Service and service type:

• This service provides care and support to people living in one ‘extra care setting, so that they can live as independently as possible. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

• The service is required to have a registered manager. 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. At the time of our inspection two managers were registered with us. One of the registered managers was on planned long-term leave and the other recently transferred to another scheme in the organisation. A new manager had been in post for three weeks prior to our inspection who planned to register with us.

Notice of inspection:

• Our inspection was announced.

• We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because staff were often out of the service or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.

What we did:

• Our inspection was informed by evidence we already held about the service. We also checked for feedback we received from members of the public, the local authority and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). We checked records held by Companies House and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

• We asked the service to complete a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once a year to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

• We spoke with nine people who used the service and one relative.

• We spoke with the new manager , the registered manager who had transferred to another scheme in the organisation, the area manager, the regional manager and three care workers.

• We reviewed four people’s care records and medicines records, three staff personnel files, audits and other records about the management of the service.

Updated 13 March 2019

About the service:

• The service is an extra care service. This service provides care and support to people living in one ‘extra care’ scheme, so that they can live as independently as possible. The scheme had 50 flats and 29 people were using the service at the time of our inspection.

• The service supports older people who require assistance with personal care.

People’s experience of using this service:

• People received a good standard of care, although medicines management required improvement.

• The service met the characteristics for a rating of “good” in all the key questions besides 'safe' which we rated "requires improvement" due to medicines management processes which were not in line with best practice.

• People liked the staff who supported them and their care met their needs. People were involved in their care and were supported to maintain their independence so they could continue to live at London Care (Toldene) as long as possible.

• People received care from staff who were well supported with induction, training and ongoing supervision.

• The service had a clear hierarchy with competent leadership and management. People and staff had confidence in the manager. The manager and staff understood their roles and responsibilities.

Our overall rating for the service after this inspection was “good”.

• More information is in our full report.

Rating at last inspection:

• This was our first inspection of the service since it registered with us in May 2018.

Why we inspected:

• All services are inspected within one year of registering with us. This inspection was part of our scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received.

Follow up:

• We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people receive safe, compassionate, high quality care. Further inspections will be planned for in line with our inspection schedule or in response to concerns.