Walton House Nursing Home

Updated 10 February 2022

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.

As part of CQC’s response to care homes with outbreaks of COVID-19, we are conducting reviews to ensure that the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practice is safe and that services are compliant with IPC measures. This was a targeted inspection looking at the IPC practices the provider has in place. We also asked the provider about any staffing pressures the service was experiencing and whether this was having an impact on the service.

This inspection took place on 20 January 2022 and was announced. We gave the service one day notice of the inspection.

Updated 10 February 2022

About the service

Walton house nursing home is a residential care home, providing accommodation for persons who require nursing or personal care and, treatment of disease, disorder or injury for up to 41 older people and younger adults. Thirty seven people were living in the service at the time of the inspection. The service is purpose built with communal facilities and bedrooms over two floors. There is an outside accessible garden for people to use and car parking available.

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

Medicines were administered safely. The registered manager took actions to ensure staff reported any concerns with medicines fridge recordings. And that staff medicines competency checks were more detailed to confirm they were safe to administer medicines safely. We have made a recommendation about the management of medicines storage and staff competency checks. Systems were in place to protect people from abuse. Staff were recruited safely, we saw staff visible during the inspection. Relevant safety checks had been completed.

All the people confirmed they were asked for consent from the staff team before undertaking any care or activity. However consent to care and treatment had not always been recorded appropriately. The registered manager took immediate action to ensure all people’s consent recorded was reviewed and recorded appropriately. We have made a recommendation about consent to care and treatment is. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Staff training had been completed and people were confident in the knowledge and skills of the staff team. The meal time experience was positive and people were offered choices with their meals. The service was purpose built and supported the needs of people living there. People’s needs had been assessed and their health needs supported. We saw professionals visiting during the inspection.

People received good care, were happy with the care they received and were involved in decisions. Staff were seen treating people with dignity and respect. A range of activities were provided to people, people told us they enjoyed these. People’s communication needs were considered. Systems were in place to deal with complaints, positive feedback was received.

Care plans were completed electronically, these included information about people’s needs. However some we reviewed had not been updated to reflect the persons current need. The registered manager took immediate action to update these. We have made a recommendation about ensuring records contained relevant information to support the delivery of care to people. People and relatives told us they had been involved in the development of their care plans.

Relevant certificates were on display in the service including the ratings from the last inspection. We received positive feedback about the registered manager, surveys and feedback was obtained. Audits and monitoring was taking place. The registered manager told us the provider planned to increase the frequency of their audits to monitor the service.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 27 September 2017). We made recommendations in relation to the safe storage and handling of medicines, support with meals, staff deployment and; privacy, dignity and respect.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

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.