Archived: Flowerdown Care Home

This inspection took place on 9 and 13 November 2017 and was unannounced.

A registered manager was employed by the service who was present throughout the inspection. 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.

The registered manager was dedicated and passionate in their role. They knew people’s needs well and were prominently involved in the day to day running of the service. There were sufficient numbers of staff who were friendly and patient in their approach with people. Staff understood about people’s preferences, routines and the support they needed to maintain important relationships.

People (affectionately) referred to the home as ‘shabby chic’ but the atmosphere “buzzing yet calm”. There were plans to refurbish the home in the Spring 2018; everyone said they had been included and kept up to date with what is going to happen.

Staff were aware of their responsibilities in keeping people safe from harm and treated people with dignity and respect. People were encouraged to be as independent as possible and the service provided a range of individual activities to keep people stimulated and active.

All staff we spoke with put the people living at Flowerdown at the centre of everything they did. We saw examples of very good relationships between people, their relatives and staff. Relatives told us the staff knew their relative "very well" and had made then feel "included in their relatives care". People responded with happiness to staff spending time with them.

People were assisted by the use of technology and creative ideas from staff to enable them to make their wishes a reality.

Staff understood the need to gain consent and followed legislation designed to protect people’s rights and freedoms. Staff understood people’s individual needs and were able to make adjustments to ensure these needs were met. Where people received care at the end of their life, they were fully consulted and given choices about the care they wanted to receive.

Appropriate checks were made before staff started to work to make sure they were suitable to work in a care setting. Once in their role, staff benefitted from training, induction and programme of supervision, which helped staff remain effective.

Risks to individuals were assessed and monitored. When incidents took place, the registered manager reflected on the events to ensure learning was embedded for future practice. People were supported to access healthcare services when required. The service had a very good track record of working with different stakeholders in order to ensure people’s needs were met.

People were monitored and encouraged with their eating and drinking where required and concerns about their health were quickly followed up with referrals to relevant professionals.

There was a complaints policy in place which people felt comfortable using if they had concerns.

Management and quality assurance systems were in place to drive continuous improvement and the service .

We spoke with four relatives who were visiting their family members at the time of our inspection. All relatives that we spoke to told us that they had no concerns and were confident that their family members care needs were always met. Relatives said that they felt staff were available whenever their family member needed assistance. They also said that staff were very pleasant and helpful and were complimentary about the way the service was run.

Everyone we spoke with confirmed that people's privacy and dignity was maintained at all times and that people were able to make day to day decisions such as what time they got up, how and where they spent their time and what they had to eat.

Relatives said that if they had any concerns they would address these with the manager. They said that they always found the manager approachable and that "nothing was too much trouble".

Flowerdown Care Home is supported by a team of ancillary staff including housekeeping, kitchen and maintenance teams.

Overall, we found that the service had achieved compliance in the three essential standards where we had identified concerns at our last visit. We found that care was more person-centred, and staff involved people in decisions about their care. We observed people were encouraged to make their own choices and staff treated people with courtesy and respect. People using the service said they were treated with respect staff were caring and kind. We were told, 'The staff are like family here' and there is a 'very nice atmosphere'. The registered manager explained how training and discussion had supported these improvements.

We found that people's nutritional needs were met and people were supported to have enough food and drink during the day. There was enough choice and people told us the food was 'very good'. There was a robust approach to calculating people's risk of malnutrition and monitoring people's food and fluid intake. We found that clear records were maintained, recording people's food and fluid intake, their preferences and any recommendations from healthcare professionals.