Archived: Albion Court Care Centre

We last carried out a full inspection of this service on 1 October 2015 when we identified that improvements were needed in all the questions we ask. As a result of the breach of regulations in the way medicines were managed we carried out a follow up inspection on 9 July 2016 to check if improvements in the management of medicines had been made. We found that there had not been sufficient improvements so we issued a warning notice to the registered provider to encourage further improvements. At this inspection we checked that the required improvements had been made and maintained. We saw that improvements had been made so that people were receiving their medicines as required but some further improvements were needed.

Albion Court Care Centre provides nursing and personal care to up to 89 people for reasons of frailty, physical disability, sensory impairment and mental health.

The registered provider is required as part of their conditions of registration to have a registered manager in post. At the time of or inspection there had not been a registered manager in post since April 2016.

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.

During our inspection we found that improvements had been made at Albion Court so that generally people and their relatives were happier with the service they received. However, we identified that further improvements were needed in areas such as staff consistency, medicines and mealtime management.

People’s needs were met but care provided to people was generally task orientated rather than person centred. For example, staff completed the basis tasks for people such as getting people up and dressed in the morning, but no thought was given about people wanting a drink at that time. Instead people had to wait until the drinks trolley came round later in the morning.

People received food and drink that met their nutritional needs but mealtimes were not always a pleasant experience and well managed.

The provider had assessed the number of staff needed to meet people’s needs but due to the dependency on agency staff to meet the required numbers because of a high turnover of staff people were unhappy with the number of different people in the home.

Staff were supported to provide care to people through the provision of training, supervision and improved communications through meetings and handovers.

Systems were in place to listen to the views of people and take actions to address the issues raised through complaints, surveys and meetings. The quality of the service was monitored but the systems had not always idenfied the areas where improvements were needed.

We undertook this focused inspection on 18 July 2016 to check that they had followed their plan and to confirm that they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to those requirements. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for (location's name) on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Albion Court Care Centre provides nursing care to up to 89 people. At the time of our inspection there were 82 people that lived there.

Albion Court Care Centre is required to have a registered manager in post. There was not a registered manager in post at the time of this inspection. 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.

People told us that they generally received their medicines at the same time each day but there were occasions when they did not. We saw that people did not always receive their medicines as prescribed because either the medicines were still in the medication trolley or more medicines had been signed as given than were available. Creams were not always stored safely and at the correct temperatures. Records for the application of medicinal skin patches and creams were not consistently completed so that it could not be determined that people's health needs were being appropriately met.

Our inspection showed that insufficient improvements had been made to ensure that there was safe and proper management of medicines and this had resulted in an on-going breach of regulations and we have taken further enforcement actions. You can see what actions we have taken at the end of this report.