Last updated 6 December 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 comprehensive inspection visit took place on 13 November 2018 and was unannounced.

The inspection team consisted of an inspector and an assistant inspector.

Prior to this inspection, we reviewed the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form which asks registered persons to provide us with key information about the service, what the service does well and any improvements they plan to make. We also reviewed other information we held about the service such as notifications. These are events that happen in the service that the provider is required to tell us about. In addition, we considered our last Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection report and information that had been sent to us by other agencies such as commissioners who had a contract with the service.

During the inspection visit, we spoke with nine people who lived at the service for their views about the support they received. We spoke with the registered manager, two care managers, a member of the care staff team, the maintenance person, the cook and three of the domestic staff.

We spent time observing how people and staff interacted and how care plans were being implemented using the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us to understand the experience of people who were unable to communicate with us direct.

In addition, we looked at specific parts of the care records of three people who lived at the service. We also looked at the management of medicines and a range of information provided by the registered manager about how they ran the service.