Tallington Lodge Care Home

Updated 26 April 2019

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:

The inspection was completed on 30 January 2019. The inspection team consisted of an 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. This included experience of looking after someone with dementia.

Service and service type:

Tallington Lodge Care Home is a ‘care home’. 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. Tallington Lodge Care Home accommodates 30 people in one purpose-built building.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection:

The inspection was unannounced.

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, and local authorities.

• Providers are required to send us key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections.

• We reviewed other information that we held about the service such as notifications. These are events that happen in the service that the registered provider is required to tell us about.

• We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.

• We spoke with the registered manager, two care workers, a housekeeper and a member of the kitchen staff.

• We spoke with six people living at the home and two relatives who visited during the inspection.

• We looked at a range of documents and written records including four people’s care files and two staff recruitment records. We also looked at information relating to the administration of medicines and the auditing and monitoring of service provision.

Updated 26 April 2019

About the service:

Tallington Lodge Care Home is a purpose built care home that was providing personal care to 35 people aged 65 and over, some of whom may be living with dementia at the time of the inspection.

People’s experience of using this service:

• People were confident that they were safe at the home. Staff had received training in keeping people safe from harm.

• People’s needs had been assessed and the information was used to develop care plans which accurately reflected people’s needs and the risks to people. People were fully involved in planning their care. They provided advice for staff on how to minimise risks to people and used recognised best practice methods for assessing and monitoring people’s risks. People told us they were confident that staff cared for them in a safe way.

• There were enough staff to care for people safely and staff had receiving the training they needed to provide safe effective care. Staff were kind and caring. Recruitment processes ensured that staff were safe to work with people living at the home.

• Medicines were safely managed and accurate records were kept.

• The environment supported people’s needs. It was clean and tidy and staff had received training in keeping people safe from the risk of infection.

• People’s needs around food and nutrition were assessed and provided to meet their needs.

• People’s ability to make decisions for themselves were assessed and if needed decisions were made in people’s best interests. Where people were unable to consent to living at the home an application was made under the deprivation of liberty safeguards.

• The provider had effective system in place to monitor the quality of care provided.

• People’s views of the care they received was used to identify areas for improvement.

Rating at last inspection:

The service has not previously been rated.

Why we inspected:

This was a planned inspection based on the date of registration of the service.

Follow up:

We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about this service until we return to visit as per our inspection programme. If any concerning information is received, we may inspect sooner.

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