Last updated 13 December 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 checked 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.

Palace House Care Home is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

This inspection took place on 1 and 2 November 2017. The first day was unannounced. The inspection was carried out by an adult social care 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.

We used information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

Before the inspection we reviewed the information we held about the service such as notifications, complaints and safeguarding information. We discussed the service with the local authority contract monitoring team and local commissioning team. We looked at the recent report from the local authority contract monitoring team.

During the inspection, we used a number of different methods to help us understand the experiences of people who lived in the home. We spoke with the area manager, the manager, two registered nurses, three care staff and the maintenance person. We spoke with five people living in the home and with seven visitors. We also spoke with a social care professional during the visit.

We looked at a sample of records including five people's care plans and other associated documentation, two staff recruitment and induction records, staff rotas, training and supervision records, minutes from meetings, complaints and compliments records, medication records, maintenance certificates and development plans, policies and procedures and quality assurance audits. Following the inspection visit we asked the manager to send us some additional information. This was forwarded in good time.