Archived: Bradley House Residential Care Home

Updated 16 September 2016

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.

We undertook a comprehensive inspection of Bradley House Residential Care Home on 2 August 2016. This involved inspecting the service against all five of the questions we ask about services: is the service safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

The inspection was unannounced. This meant the staff and the provider did not know we would be visiting. The inspection was carried out by one inspector.

Before carrying out the inspection we reviewed the information we held about the care home. This included the report we received from the provider which set out the actions they would take to meet the legal requirements following our inspection in March 2015. We also looked at the notifications we had received. Notifications are information about important events which the provider is required to tell us about by law.

The provider had not completed and sent us a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a document which asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

During our inspection we spoke with four people who lived at the home and one visitor. We spent time with people in their bedrooms and in communal areas. We observed the way staff interacted and engaged with people. We spoke with the registered manager, three care staff, one member of housekeeping staff and a visiting health professional. We observed how equipment, such as pressure relieving equipment and hoists, was being used in the home.

We looked at three people’s care records. We looked at medicine records, staff recruitment files, quality assurance audits records and other records relating to the monitoring and management of the care home.

Updated 16 September 2016

We carried out this unannounced inspection of Bradley House Residential Care Home on 2 August 2016. During our last inspection on 17 March 2015, we identified four breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. The breaches related to hazards in the environment, cleanliness, storage of records and quality assurance systems. The provider wrote to us with an action plan of improvements that would be made. During this inspection we found most of the improvements had been made.

You can read the report from our last inspection by selecting the ‘All reports’ link for Bradley House Residential Care Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Bradley House Residential Care Home is a 10 bedded home that provides accommodation for persons who require personal care. At the time of our inspection there were nine people living in the care home.

There was a registered manager in place at the time of our inspection. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. The registered manager was also the registered provider. Registered providers and registered managers 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.

At our inspection on 2 August 2016, we found that sufficient action had been taken in relation to the requirement actions we had issued following the previous inspection. Overall, although we found improvements had been made, further improvements were still needed.

We identified a breach of regulation with regard to medicine management. People’s medicines were not managed safely. There were shortfalls in the recording and administering of some medicines. The recording of medicines, including those that require additional security was not sufficient. Topical medicines were not always recorded to confirm they had been applied.

People who lived in the home felt safe. Staff had a clear understanding of how to safeguard people from avoidable harm and abuse. Sufficient numbers of staff were deployed to meet the needs of people living in the care home.

People were supported to eat and drink and their nutrition and hydration needs were being met. We found people’s specific and assessed needs were not always recorded for the use of fluid thickening agents. We have recommended that current NHS guidance is followed.

People told us they enjoyed living in the home and felt cared for by staff. They told us staff knew their needs well. Staff were kind and caring. We found people were being treated with dignity and respect and we found people’s privacy was maintained.

Staff had an understanding of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). This meant people’s rights were protected.

There were some improvements in the systems and audits in place to assess and monitor the quality of the home. Further improvements were needed and we found shortfalls in relation to systematic completion of audits and identification of shortfalls. For example, in relation to management of medicines and the health and safety risks of scalds from baths. We have recommended that the provider completes a thorough scalding risk assessment in accordance with current Health and Safety Executive guidance.

We found one breach of the regulations at this inspection. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.