Updated 5 March 2019
The inspection:
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team:
The inspection was carried out by one inspector.
Service and service type:
South Lodge is a care home. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.
The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. 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.’
Notice of inspection:
The inspection was unannounced on the first day and announced on the second day.
What we did:
We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection in August 2016. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about. We assessed the 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. We used all this information to plan our inspection.
We used a number of different methods such as undertaking observations to help us understand people’s experiences of the service. As part of our observations we used the Short Observational Tool for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the needs of people who could not talk with us.
During the inspection we spoke with seven people living at the service and one relative. We spoke with nine members of staff, including the registered manager, and chair of the trustees. After the inspection we viewed the service’s social media pages, which included information about people’s experience of living at South Lodge and their friends and family’s comments. We reviewed four people’s care and support records and two staff files. We also looked at records relating to the management of the service such as incident and accident records, meeting minutes, recruitment and training records, policies, audits and complaints. We received feedback from three visiting health care professionals.