The Cedars Residential Care Home

Updated 23 March 2022

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 is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

As part of CQC’s response to care homes with outbreaks of COVID-19, we are conducting reviews to ensure that the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practice is safe and that services are compliant with IPC measures. This was a targeted inspection looking at the IPC practices the provider has in place. We also asked the provider about any staffing pressures the service was experiencing and whether this was having an impact on the service.

This inspection took place on 17 February 2022 and was announced. We gave the service one day’s notice of the inspection.

Updated 23 March 2022

About the service

The Cedars Residential Care Home (“The Cedars”) provides personal care for up to 27 people of different ages with a variety of health and care needs, including those living with dementia. At the time of inspection 24 people were living at this two-storey, purpose-built and accessible service in a residential area of Holmes Chapel.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People felt safe living at The Cedars and their experience of using the service was overall positive. One person said, “We are well looked after here. Where I was before, they did not know how to care for people. Here, they are smashing”. A family member told us, “I could not be happier with how things have gone for [relative]. It was a massive change and has given them a new life, living here.”

There was some slightly mixed feedback from people and relatives about ongoing improvements and the reliability of communication within the service. We considered that the frequency of meetings for people, relatives and staff could be increased to support this. We found that improvements were required to some aspects of service management. This included ensuring at times more robust improvement actions, to rectify issues identified by managers, people or relatives. We also highlighted a few areas of record-keeping to be improved.

People and relatives told us the service had much improved in different areas and staffing in particular had become more reliable. The use of agency staff had greatly reduced, which promoted consistency in people’s care. The registered manager was developing evening and night staffing further, to help ensure appropriate support.

This change to staffing was to also ensure consistent medication procedures, as the service had identified that during busy evening times staff giving medicines might get distracted. Medication administration had been a focus for managers and this had led to improvements. However, we highlighted the need for at times more robust approached to ensuring staff’s medication competency. The registered manager was addressing this, and we made a recommendation.

The positive culture of the service was led by a dedicated registered manager who knew the service very well. In addition, a newly appointed, experienced deputy brought a further objective viewpoint of improvements required and actions to achieve this. People, relative and staff were involved in the service through newsletters and satisfaction questionnaires. Relatives had also left positive comments for the service on a national review website.

People were treated with kindness and respect by staff that knew them well. This was supported by person-centred care plans the registered manager had particularly focused on developing. The service worked with a variety of health and social care professionals to help people achieve good outcomes and promote their wellbeing. There was a variety of activities on offer and an additional activities person had been employed. People were engaged in activities but felt there was room for further development. The registered manager was continuously exploring positive ways for the service to connect with the local community.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 1 August 2018). Since this rating was awarded the provider has altered its legal entity.

Why we inspected

This was a planned visit as per our inspection programme.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.