Mont Calm Residential Home

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence.

At our last assessment we rated this key question Inadequate. At this assessment the rating has changed to Good. This meant the effectiveness of people’s care, treatment and support did not always achieve good outcomes or was inconsistent.

The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to lack of adherence to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA).

This service scored 71 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The provider made sure people’s care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care and wellbeing needs with them. A relative told leaders accommodated taking their family member into the service to live with their partner there. Staff completed robust assessments of needs with people and gathered information from them, their representatives and services involved in their support to establish initial support plans.

There were evidence-based good practice tools being used to assess people’s level of needs, for example, Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST) was used to identify people who were at risk of malnutrition. The MUST tool isa method used by healthcare professionals to assess the risk of malnutrition in adults. When people were losing weight, plans were put in place to support with this. Since the previous assessment there had been an improvement with the use of Abbey Pain Scale (an instrument designed to assist in the assessment of pain) used to determine the level of pain. These contained more accurate guidance for staff. This enabled staff to assess people’s pain levels who could not communicate them.

Since the last Assessment we saw that had been improvement where people required a review of their health. For example, we saw from care records 1 person’s seizures had increased in frequency. Advice had been sought from health care professionals around this, their medicine was increased, and the seizures had reduced. Leaders contacted the GP for regular reviews of people’s medication. Where people’s mobility had changed, referrals were made to occupational therapists. We saw records of staff contacting the GP and speaking with visiting community nurses in relation to other people’s health needs.

Each day and night, staff held flash meetings to talk through the needs of people to ensure that they were aware of any changes.

The provider supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. Staff supported people to live healthier lives and where possible, reduce their future needs for care and support. One person told us, “The dentist will come and see me here and the opticians come, and the GP comes in if we have any problems.” We saw where people had specific health conditions leaders ensured the appropriate health care professional was involved in their care. This included bowel health, malnutrition, epilepsy and diabetes.

The provider routinely monitored people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. They ensured that outcomes were positive and consistent, and that they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves. A person told us that since they have been at the service, “They got me fit again.” Staff monitored people’s outcomes and included appropriate information in their care plans.

The provider did not always tell people about their rights around consent and did not always respect their rights when delivering care and treatment. At the previous inspection we found capacity assessments and best interest meetings were not always taking place. Whilst we have seen improvements around this, there still remained some concerns. There were people with sensor mats in their rooms to alert staff if people got out of their bed. However, where people lacked capacity to agree to this restriction, there were not always capacity assessments in place or records of best interest discussion around what other least restrictive options had been considered.

However, we did see other capacity assessments and best interest discussions around other restrictions including the locked front door and locked doors within the service.