5 & 9 March 2015
During a routine inspection
This inspection took place on 5 March 2015 and 9 March and was unannounced.
Westgrove House is a three storey residential home which provides care to older people including people who are living with dementia. Westgrove House is registered to provide care for 21people. At the time of our inspection there were 18 people living at Westgrove House.
There was a registered manager in post at the time of our 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
People told us they felt safe living at Westgrove House and staff knew how to keep people safe from the risk of abuse.
People said staff were respectful and kind towards them and we saw staff were caring to people throughout our visit. Staff protected people’s privacy and dignity when they provided care to people and staff asked people for their consent before any care was given.
Care plans contained accurate and relevant information for staff to help them provide the individual care and treatment people required. We saw examples of care records that reflected people’s wishes. We found people received care and support from staff who had the knowledge and experience to care for people as they wished.
People told us they received their medicines when required. Staff were trained to administer medicines and had been assessed as competent which meant people received their medicines from suitably trained, qualified and experienced staff.
Systems and processes were in place to recruit staff that were suitable to work in the service. Staff demonstrated a good awareness of the importance of keeping people safe. The registered manager and staff understood their responsibilities for reporting any concerns regarding potential risks of abuse.
The manager and staff had little understanding of how the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005 and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) affected the service people received. Staff understood they needed to respect people’s choices and decisions and where people had capacity, staff followed people’s wishes. Where people did not have capacity to make certain decisions, we found assessments of people’s individual capacity and records of best interests decisions had not been completed. This made it difficult to establish whether people had consented to, and received care and treatment which was in their best interest.
DoLS are safeguards used to protect people where their freedom or liberties are restricted. We found examples where people’s freedom was restricted but there were no applications made to the authorising body that showed these restrictions were authorised and least restrictive.
Regular checks were completed by the registered manager and provider to identify and improve the quality of service people received. These checks and audits helped ensure actions had been taken that led to improvements. People told us they were pleased with the service they received. If anyone had concerns, these were listened to and responded to in a timely way.
You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.