Archived: Willow Court Care Home

Updated 13 September 2019

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

The inspection team was made up of an inspector and an assistant inspector.

Service and service type

Willow Court Care Home is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was unannounced.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received from the provider since the last inspection, such as information about any serious injuries or deaths.

The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

We sought feedback from the local authority and Healthwatch about the service. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with two people who used the service and four relatives about their experience of the service. Some people who used the service could not verbally communicate their experience of the care they received. We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.

We spoke with the registered manger, the provider’s regional manager, a nurse, five care staff, one member of the maintenance team and the cook. We reviewed a range of records. These included four people's care records and medicines records. We looked at records relating to the management of the service and a variety of policies and procedures.

After the inspection

We asked the provider to send us some additional information so we could validate the evidence we found.

Updated 13 September 2019

About the service

Willow Court Care Home is a residential care home providing nursing and personal care to 35 older people at the time of the inspection, including some people living with a dementia type condition. The service can support up to 48 people. Care is provided over two floors.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

There were not enough staff to support people. Staff told us they did not always have time to complete all of their tasks. People and relatives told us staff were sometimes very rushed. In response, shortly after the inspection, the registered manager told us staffing levels had been increased. Accidents and incidents had been reviewed, but the level of detail within investigations varied. Medicines were well managed and the home was clean.

The provider’s quality monitoring system had not addressed the issues we had found. The provider’s tools to assess staffing needs did not include some key performance information. People, relatives and staff were given opportunities to share their views on the service. We were told the registered manager was approachable and hard working, however, they did not have a deputy manager or permanent nursing staff to support with leading the service.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was Good (published 21 March 2018).

Why we inspected

The inspection was prompted in part by concerns we received about staffing levels. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the Key Questions of Safe and Well-Led only

We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other Key Questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those Key Questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

The overall rating for the service has changed from Good to Requires Improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the Safe and Well-Led sections of this full report. You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Willow Court Care Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement

We have identified one breach in relation to staffing levels at this inspection. Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.