Updated 19 March 2019
The inspection
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.
Inspection team:
The inspection took place on 11 February 2019 and was carried out by four inspectors, two experts by experience and a specialist advisor. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of service. A specialist advisor is a qualified healthcare professional. Two of the inspectors only attended during the morning with their primary purpose to speak with people and complete observations on the units.
Service and service type
Abbey Park is a care home offering care for up to 84 people who require personal or specialist nursing care, rehabilitation and dementia care. The home provides care in a number of separate units over two floors. 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. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are 'registered persons'. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
Notice of inspection:
The inspection was unannounced.
What we did:
Prior to the inspection, we reviewed information we had received about the service since their previous inspection. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as serious accidents and deaths. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We used this information to plan our inspection. We also considered the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is information we ask the provider to send to us at least annually to give us key information about the service such as what it does well and any improvements they plan to make.
During the inspection, we spoke with twelve people who used the service, nine relatives, the chaplain, administration manager, seven members of care staff, four nurses, two activity organisers, the deputy manager and the registered manager. We also observed the communal areas on each of the units and visited some people in their rooms to assess how people were supported by staff. We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.
We looked at nine care records and records that related to the management and running of the service such as audits and quality monitoring records. We looked at 14 Medicine Administration Records (MAR) and checked how medicines were stored and administered. We looked at incident and accident records, safeguarding records, complaints and thankyou letters.