Dovehaven Residential Care Home

Dovehaven Care Home is a residential care home providing personal care to 27 older people at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to 40 people. The service is situated in a converted Victorian dwelling and accommodation is over three floors.

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

People living at the home told us they were happy with the care and support received at Dovehaven Residential Care Home. The home had a welcoming and warm atmosphere and people were treated in a respectful and compassionate way. We witnessed positive interactions between staff and the people they supported.

Staff understood how to protect people from abuse and recruitment processes ensured new staff were suitable to work with vulnerable people. Systems were in place to help identify risk to people and ensure that any risks were managed and mitigated effectively.

There were sufficient staff to meet people’s care and support needs and staff had been trained and had their competency checked, to enable them to perform their role.

Infection control was managed effectively, and the home was clean and well maintained. Visiting was facilitated in a safe way to ensure people’s well-being was promoted by maintaining relationships that were important to them.

Whilst we were assured that 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; and the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. We have made a recommendation about the recording of consent to care and support in people’s records.

Since the last inspection, a new manager had been appointed to the home, they had begun to embed governance systems and processes which were focused on achieving person centred outcomes for people. People, their relatives and staff spoke positively about the manager.

The management team had auditing systems to maintain oversight of the service and make improvements where necessary. We have made a recommendation about further developing auditing and governance processes.

Quality assurance processes ensured people were able to give their views of the service. We found the management team responded to feedback to improve the lives of people.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service under the key questions of Safe and Well-led was requires improvement (published 17 March 2021) and there were multiple breaches of regulation. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating and breaches of regulation.

We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.

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.

Dovehaven Residential Care Home provides personal care and support for up to 40 people. It was supporting 30 people at the time of the inspection, including people living with dementia. Accommodation is over three floors.

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

Although people and their relatives told us that they were satisfied with the care and support provided by staff, the service did not always appropriately manage risk to people. People were exposed to a risk of harm.

Safety and quality checks of the environment had not identified some of the concerns found at our inspection.

There were not enough staff to meet people’s care and support needs in a timely or person-centred way.

The service was not always well managed. Assurance and auditing processes did not adequately mitigate risk to the health and welfare of people living at the service. Leadership did not promote a positive culture to ensure people received care in line with their preference and choice.

The registered provider began to address our findings following the inspection, showing they were responsive to making the required improvements, and that the safety and quality of the service was a priority.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 24/03/2020 and this is the first inspection. The last rating for the service under the provider's previous legal entity was Good (published on 03 October 2018).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to staffing numbers, delays in care, fluid and food intake and risk of falls. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them.

We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to coronavirus and other infection outbreaks effectively.

We have made a recommendation about some aspects of infection prevention and control measures.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvement. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Dovehaven Residential Care Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.