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 an inspector, an assistant 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. In this instance, in the care of older people and people living with dementia.

Service and service type:

The service is a care home.

The service did not have a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This was because the manager had been recently appointed 15 October 2018. However, at the time of our inspection the manager had applied to be registered with CQC. Since our inspection the manager has been registered with CQC.

A registered manager 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:

We did not give the provider notice of this inspection.

Inspection site visit activity started and ended on 17 December 2018.

What we did:

Before the inspection we reviewed information, we had received about the service since the last inspection. This included their action improvement plan.

Due to the short notice of our inspection, we did not request the provider to complete a provider information return (PIR). This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

During our inspection 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 speak with us. We spoke with the manager, the provider, the deputy manager, three members of care staff, a member of catering staff, a housekeeper and four people who lived at the service and a visitor. We spoke with a visiting healthcare professional. We also walked about the service to see what improvements had been made to the environment since our last inspection.

We looked at a range of records related to the running of and the quality of the service. These included risk assessments and four staff recruitment and induction files, staff training information and arrangements for managing complaints. We looked at the quality assurance audits that the manager and provider had completed. We also looked at care plans and daily care records for six people and medicine administration records.

After our inspection the manager sent us additional information about the service that we requested.