Apex Prime Care - Abbey Court

Updated 6 August 2022

Inspection team

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

Two inspectors and an Expert by Experience carried out this inspection. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type

This service provides care and support to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. The accommodation is bought or rented and is the occupant’s own home. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) does not regulate premises used for extra care housing; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support service.

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with CQC to manage the service. 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.

At the time of our inspection there was not a registered manager in post. A manager registered to another of the provider’s locations was overseeing the service, referred to as ‘the manager’ in this report.

Notice of inspection

We gave three days' notice of the inspection so the provider could contact people and their relatives to ask them to agree to talk with us on the phone as part of our inspection.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed all the information we had about the provider and used all this information to plan our inspection.

The provider was not asked to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR) prior to this inspection. A PIR is information providers send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

During the inspection

Inspection activity started on 7 June 2022 and ended on 13 June 2022. We visited the location’s office/service location on 7 June 2022.

We spoke with five people who used the service and five relatives by telephone. We spoke with five staff members including the manager. We observed support activities in the shared areas of the service.

We reviewed records including care records for three people, recruitment records for three staff members, and policies and procedures.

We reviewed all the evidence we gathered and used it to make rating judgements based on our published assessment framework

Updated 6 August 2022

About the service

Apex Prime Care – Abbey Court is an extra care service. The service provides personal care support to people living at Abbey Court. People live in their own flats with some shared facilities.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. In this service, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) can only inspect the service received by people who get support with personal care. This includes help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where people receive such support, we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of our inspection there were 18 people receiving support with personal care.

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

People we spoke with and their relatives were all very positive about the service they received. Their feedback regularly contained words such as “happy", "content" and "well looked after”. One person’s relative said, “I am highly delighted. They are very accommodating.”

The provider had identified a number of improvements needed with respect to the management and governance of the service. The provider had appointed an experienced registered manager from another location to manage Abbey Court. The new manager had developed an improvement plan, but there had not been time to introduce and embed all the changes identified.

The provider had processes in place to manage risks to people’s safety, welfare and wellbeing. There were enough staff to support people safely. There were suitable processes to manage people's medicines where required, and to protect people from the risk of abuse or poor care.

People received care and support that was effective, and staff had the necessary skills and training. 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; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

People were supported in a caring way. The service focused on people's independence and dignity. People were respected as individuals. People appreciated they were supported to be as independent as possible. There were good relationships between people and their care workers.

People received responsive care which met their needs and respected their wishes and preferences. People knew how to complain if they needed to. Procedures and staff training were in place to enable people to spend their final days comfortably, with dignity and free of pain if they chose to stay at Abbey Court

For more information, please read the detailed findings section of this report. If you are reading this as a separate summary, the full report can be found on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Rating at last inspection:

We registered this service on 18 March 2021 and this was the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.