Archived: Bablake House

Bablake House is registered to provide accommodation for up to 45 older people including older people living with dementia who require personal care. There were 38 people living in the home at the time of our visit.

A requirement of the service’s registration is that they have a registered manager. 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. There was a registered manager in post at the time of our inspection.

People living at Bablake House had varying degrees of care needs. Several people had the capacity to express their needs and were able interact with other people and staff members.

There were enough staff available to safeguard the health and wellbeing of people. Where risks associated with people’s care had been identified, there were plans in place to manage those risks. The majority of people had mobility difficulties and had walking aids to assist them to move around safely and independently.

People told us they felt safe in the home and staff understood their role in keeping people safe from abuse. The provider had a thorough recruitment procedure to ensure staff employed in the home were safe to work with the people who lived there. People received their medicines as prescribed.

The registered manager understood their responsibility to comply with the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards.

Staff received an induction to the home and completed on-going training to ensure they understood how to work safely and effectively with people.

People were positive about the caring attitude of the staff. We observed staff being caring to people and saw staff and people enjoying each other’s company. There were some social activities for people to participate in, but some people told us there was not much for them to do.

People were provided with food and drinks that met their health needs and were supported to attend regular health checks.

The registered manager had an understanding of the needs of people living with dementia and was developing the service to provide person centred dementia care. However, this process had not been fully implemented and some improvement was needed to fully achieve this.

People who lived at Bablake House, and staff, felt able to speak with registered manager and share their views about the service. The registered manager was supportive to staff and worked with them to provide good standards of care. There were effective quality assurance systems to monitor and improve the quality of service provided.

During our inspection on 6 March 2014, we found the required improvements had been carried out to address the compliance action relating to record keeping.

During our visit on 3 December 2013 we found some improvements to record keeping had been made. We also found there continued to be areas where records were not sufficiently clear. This was because some records were not up-to-date and information relating to people's health conditions was not sufficiently clear to show the risks of these and how needed to be managed.

During this visit we found continued non-compliance with record keeping. We looked at the three care plan records that we reviewed at our inspection on 10 June 2013. We checked to see if improvements to the records had been made as required.

We found that the improvements made were not sufficient. This was because some records were not accurate or up-to-date and some people did not have care plans to show how their health conditions should be managed.

We saw the home had a spacious open plan lounge with various seating areas to promote choice. Some people chose to sit and watch the television and others chose to sit quietly and read. We saw that people were asked if they agreed to the care or support staff were about to give to make sure they agreed to this.

People looked well cared for. We observed staff to be friendly and approachable towards people. People told us: 'They are lovely, they are delightful, they are very very good.' 'The care staff are very nice people.' Staff we spoke with had a good knowledge of the people they were supporting and what they needed to do to meet people's needs. People had no complaints about the service and told us they felt at ease to raise any concerns with staff if they needed to.

We found that medicines were managed appropriately and people had received their medicines as prescribed.

During our last inspection to this service we found care records were not sufficiently detailed and improvements were needed. During this inspection we found there were still some improvements needed.

We found there was limited information about people's personal preferences and interests to enable staff to deliver person centred care.

On the day of our inspection there were sufficient numbers of staff on duty. We saw staff delivering care throughout the day to make sure people's care needs were met. People we asked about the staff told us: 'They are alright. I get on with everybody.' 'The staff are perfectly alright.' 'Most of them are quite good.'

People told us that if they had concerns about anything they felt comfortable to raise these with staff or the manager.

There were quality monitoring processes in place to make sure people were happy with the care and services they were receiving. Results were mostly positive.

We found that some improvements were needed in relation to the management of records in the home. These were not always sufficiently clear to make sure staff delivered care as required.