Updated 26 February 2020
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. The service was inspected on 15, 18 and 30 January 2019.
Inspection team:
The inspection was carried out by four inspectors, a medicines 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.
Service and service type: Highfield Residential Care is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection. Highfield accommodates up to 20 people, some of whom may be living with dementia, in one adapted building. On the first two days of our inspection there were 18 people living in the home and on the third day of inspection there were 16 people.
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. In this case the registered manager was also the provider. For the purposes of this report they have been referred to as the provider.
Notice of inspection:
This inspection was unannounced.
What we did:
Before the inspection we reviewed the information we held about the home. This included any information we had received from the public or third parties such as the local authority. We also reviewed notifications the provider had sent us since our last inspection. Providers are required to notify the Care Quality Commission about events and incidents that occur including unexpected deaths, injuries to people receiving care and safeguarding matters.
We also reviewed information the provider had sent us. After our inspection published in November 2017 conditions were place on the registration and the provider was required to send us monthly reports covering the areas of risk to people using the service and the actions that they had taken to mitigate those risks.
During the inspection we spoke to
• Five people living in the service and two relatives.
• The provider
• The administrator
• The activities co-ordinator, two senior carers, three carers and the housekeeper.
• Two professionals who worked with the service.
We looked at
• Four peoples care records in depth, and specific sections within a further three care plans.
• Personal care records and daily records including food and fluid charts for five people.
• A member of the CQC medicines team looked at how the service managed people’s medicines and how information in 15 people’s medication records and care notes supported the safe handling of their medicines.
• We checked records in relation to the management of the service such as health and safety audits, audits of care records, records of meetings
• Four staff files including recruitment and training records.