Last updated 9 January 2018
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 inspection took place on 4 December 2017 and was unannounced. The inspection team consisted of two inspectors 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. The expert-by-experience for this inspection was an expert in care for older people.

Before the inspection the provider completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what they do well and improvements they plan to make. We looked at this and other information we held about the service. This included previous inspection reports and notifications. Notifications are changes, events or incidents that the service must inform us about. We contacted stakeholders, including health and social care professionals involved in the service for their feedback four professionals gave feedback regarding the service.

During the inspection we observed the support that people received in the communal areas. We were also invited in to people’s individual rooms. We spoke to twelve people, one relative, four care staff, one domestic staff, the chef, a nurse, the registered manager and the provider. We spent time observing how people were cared for and their interactions with staff and visitors in order to understand their experience. We also took time to observe how people and staff interacted at lunch time.

We reviewed five staff files, medication records, staff rotas, policies and procedures, health and safety files, compliments and complaints recording, incident and accident records, meeting minutes, training records and surveys undertaken by the service. We also looked at the menus and activity plans. We looked at five people’s individual records, these included care plans, risk assessments and daily notes. We pathway tracked some of these individual records to check that care planned was consistent with care delivered.