• Care Home
  • Care home

Archived: The Homestead (Crowthorne) Limited

Overall: Inadequate read more about inspection ratings

18 Heath Hill Road North, Crowthorne, Berkshire, RG45 7BX (01344) 776270

Provided and run by:
The Homestead (Crowthorne) Limited

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 15 November 2019

Background to this inspection

The 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.

Inspection team:

This inspection was carried out by one Inspector, two Inspection Managers, a bank Inspector and an Expert by Experience (ExE). An ExE is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type:

The Homestead (Crowthorne) Limited is a care home which provides personal care and support for up to 23 people. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection. The service is set over three floors. The first floor is a dementia care specific floor. At the time of our inspection 19 people were residing in the home on the first day of the inspection and 17 people on the second day of inspection as two people had been admitted into hospital.

Notice of inspection:

This inspection was unannounced on the first day 21 March 2019 and announced for the second day 28 March 2019. The second day of inspection was announced to ensure that management presence was at the service.

What we did:

Before the inspection we reviewed information we had received about the service. This included notifications the provider had submitted to us. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to tell us about by law. We used this information to help us decide what areas to focus on during our inspection.

During the inspection we spoke with four people using the service and five relatives of people residing in the home. We observed staff with people in communal areas of the service. We spoke with the Nominated Individual, who was also the registered provider of the service, the registered manager of the service’s sister home, the administrator, the chef, the kitchen assistant, two district nurses, an Occupational Therapist, housekeeping staff, seven care staff members, five local authority staff, and two fire safety inspectors. We looked at 18 people's care records and associated documents. We reviewed people’s medicine administration.

We looked at the records of accidents, incidents and complaints, service user and relative feedback surveys. We also looked at staff training records for all staff, the recruitment records and the supervision and appraisal records.

Overall inspection

Inadequate

Updated 15 November 2019

About the service:

The Homestead (Crowthorne) Limited is a care home which provides personal care and support for up to 23 older people living with dementia.

The registered manager of the home had left the service at the beginning of 2019, however was still registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). A new manager was appointed but left on 18 March 2019 just before our inspection. We were assisted by the Nominated Individual (NI) for the service, who is also the registered provider of the service. The registered manager and registered provider are ‘Registered Persons’. Registered Persons have a legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People’s experience of using this service:

¿People did not receive a service that provided them with safe, effective and high-quality care.

¿Risks to people's safety and well-being were not managed effectively and this placed people at risk of harm.

¿Infection control was not always managed in an effective way.

¿Incidents and accidents were not managed safely to prevent a reoccurrence.

¿People's needs and preferences were not always assessed or person-centred plans developed to guide staff on how to meet people's needs.

¿Staff did not always complete training in meeting people's needs and this meant people were at risk of inappropriate care and treatment.

¿People were not always treated respectfully or in a way that promoted their privacy and dignity.

¿Staff were not always deployed effectively.

¿The service was not well-led and the governance system was not effective and did not identify the risks to the health, safety and well-being of people or drive continuous improvements.

¿Complaints had not always been managed appropriately.

¿Appropriate referrals were not made to the local authority in a timely way.

¿We were not always notified, as required by law, of notifiable safety incidents.

¿Medicines management was not always safe.

¿People and their relatives told us staff were caring.

There is more information about this in the full report.

Rating at last inspection:

Good (Published on 19 July 2018).

Why we inspected:

This was a responsive inspection due to information we received of risk and concern regarding the safety and welfare of people living in the home.

Enforcement:

We have told the provider to take immediate action to address some of the concerns we found. Full information about CQC's regulatory response to the more serious concerns found during inspections is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded.

Follow up:

The overall rating for this service is 'Inadequate' and the service is therefore in 'special measures. Services in special measures will be kept under review and, if we have not taken immediate action to propose to cancel the provider's registration of the service, will be inspected again within six months.

The expectation is that providers found to have been providing inadequate care should have made significant improvements within this timeframe. If not enough improvement is made within this timeframe so that there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration within six months if they do not improve. This service will continue to be kept under review and, if needed, could be escalated to urgent enforcement action.

Where necessary, another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement so there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take action to prevent the provider from operating this service. This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration. For adult social care services, the maximum time for being in special measures will usually be no more than 12 months. If the service has demonstrated improvements when we inspect it and it is no longer rated as inadequate for any of the five key questions it will no longer be in special measures.