Archived: The Gables Care Home

Updated 14 January 2017

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This focused inspection took place on 15 October 2016 and was unannounced. The inspection team consisted of two adult social care inspector’s, one of whom had been involved in the inspection of Harker Grange Nursing Home, a sister home to this service in Cumbria.

Before our inspection we reviewed the information we held about the home, this included the provider's action plan from the previous inspection in February 2016. We spoke with the local authority contracts and safeguarding teams and looked at the notifications made to CQC and safeguarding referrals that had been made.

During the inspection we spoke with six members of staff including the registered manager and one of the owners of the home. We observed staff interaction with people living at the home and spoke informally with people living at the home throughout the day. We observed medicines being handled and discussed medicines handling with staff. We looked at records that related to the management of the service and regarding how quality was being monitored within the home.

Updated 14 January 2017

We carried out an unannounced focused inspection at The Gables on 25 October 2016. This was due to issues we had at the ‘sister’ home of The Gables, Harker Grange Nursing Home, which had resulted in the commission removing this homes registration status. We wanted to ensure that similar issues were not present at The Gables.

At the last inspection in February 2016 The Gables were rated as ‘Good’ overall with the safe domain receiving a rating of ‘Requires Improvement’. At the February inspection there was one breach of Regulation 12 (Safe care and treatment). Following the inspection the registered provider wrote to us and sent an action plan saying how and when they intended to make the improvements needed to meet the regulation. The breach of regulation was met at this inspection.

The service had a registered manager in post at this inspection. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) 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. The registered manager had previously been the business manager at the home and had been in the process of registering when we were last at the home in February 2016. The previous registered manager was still working at the home as part of the care team.

The Gables Care Home accommodates up to 21 people who need accommodation for their personal care needs. The home provides short and long term care. The home is a semi-detached property with bedroom accommodation being located on three floors. Currently there are 15 single rooms and three shared rooms. The upper floors can be accessed via a passenger lift. There is a large communal lounge and dining area and a conservatory. The ground floor communal area had been refurbished and redecorated and the conservatory replaced since our last inspection. There were 19 people living at the home at the time of our inspection with one person occupying a double room to themselves.

We found that improvements had been made to the home since our last inspection and that the issues experienced at the ‘sister’ home were not in place at The Gables.

The management of falls had been a concern at the homes previous inspection. We found that processes were now in place to manage, prevent, record and report falls and potential safeguarding issues.

The management of medicines had recently transferred to an electronic system. Staff had received the appropriate training and were positive about the new system in place. We found that people received their medicines on time and in a safe manner. We made one recommendation regarding the storage of controlled drugs.

The home was fully staffed and staffing levels were not raised as an issue by anyone we spoke with and were observed to be sufficient to meet the assessed needs of the people living in the home.

At the time of our inspection the home were transferring care plans and associated documents to an electronic care planning system. Whilst we found care plans to contain some good information they were difficult to navigate and were not always person centred and reflective of people’s most up to date needs. We have made a recommendation about this.

We found evidence of audits taking place although some areas were not formally audited such as infection prevention control and care planning. We have made a recommendation about this.

Meetings were held for people living in the home, their relatives and staff which meant people had an opportunity to learn about developments in the home and have an input.

The morale and the culture within the home was observed to be positive and staff we spoke with confirmed this to be the case.

We saw evidence that the home maintained the premises and equipment via servicing and appropriate maintenance processes being in place.