The Care Quality Commission
  • Care Home
  • Care home

Archived: The Branksome Care Home

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

56 St John's Road, Buxton, Derbyshire, SK17 6TR (01298) 26230

Provided and run by:
Tamaris Healthcare (England) Limited

Important: The provider of this service changed. See new profile

All Inspections

14 October 2015

During a routine inspection

The Branksome Care Home is registered to provide nursing and personal care for up to 34 people. On the day of our inspection 33 people were receiving care.

The Branksome is required to have a registered manager. The provider was in the process of recruiting a new manager who would register with the Care Quality Commission once appointed. The provider had an interim manager in post until the new manager was recruited.

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.

At this inspection people told us they felt safe. People were protected and informed against harm and abuse. People’s relatives and staff were confident concerns would be treated seriously.

People and their relatives were happy with the support and care being provided. Everyone felt the needs of people were being met. People told us that staff treated them with compassion and respect.

Staff were knowledgeable about the needs of people. People were assisted and cared for by staff who were kind and friendly. People’s individual rights and their needs, choices and preferences were all respected by the staff.

Staff received the training, support and supervision they needed to perform their role and responsibilities. Staff understood and followed the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) to obtain people’s consent or appropriate authorisation for their care.

People were supported and encouraged to make choices and decisions about their care and daily living arrangements. Where people were unable to do so, staff recorded how decisions were made in people’s best interests.

People were supported to engage and participate in a range of social and recreational activities, which met with their choices and preferences. People were supported to maintain relationships with friends and families.

We saw there was enough staff to respond to people’s needs in a timely manner. Staffing arrangements were sufficient and regularly reviewed to ensure people’s changing needs were met.

The provider’s arrangements helped to make sure that staff were safely recruited and fit to provide people’s care at the service. We saw pre-employment checks were completed for all staff, these included Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks, proof of identity and written references. Nurses’ professional registration status was checked annually.

Systems were in place to ensure medicines were safely stored, administered and disposed of.

Medicines were safely managed and in line with current guidance and legislation. Nurses administered medicines and received training to ensure their practice was safe.

There were systems in place to enable the manager to audit, monitor and assess the quality of the service. Any concerns or complaints people had were responded to and resolved by the management team.

10 September 2013

During an inspection looking at part of the service

At our previous inspection of the home in April 2013 we found that people were not always protected from the risk of infection because appropriate guidance had not been followed and equipment being used by people was unclean.

On this occasion we did not speak with anyone who lives at the care home. This was because their feedback did not relate to the actions taken by the provider.

During this inspection we spoke with the manager of the home and reviewed the provider's action plan. We found that actions had been taken to ensure that appropriate arrangements were in place to ensure people were protected from the risk of infection. We saw that equipment being used by people was clean and that schedules were in place to make sure this was maintained.

Steps had also been taken by the provider to ensure that staff were free of, or protected from exposure to infections. Hand hygiene assessments had also been completed with all members of staff.

5 April 2013

During a routine inspection

At the time of our visit there were 31 people receiving care at The Branksome. Some of the people at The Branksome had dementia which meant that we were unable to have conversations with them to consistently obtain their views on their care. As such we have based some of our judgements on discussions with people's relatives.

We spoke with five people receiving care and two relatives. Everyone we spoke with was happy with their or their relative's care. People told us, 'They look after me here as I can't manage on my own anymore' and, 'There's plenty to do if you want to join in, we have ladies visit that do activities with us.'

Appropriate procedures were in place to ensure that before people received any care or treatment, they were asked for their consent and that their wishes were respected. We found that people's care plans and risk assessments were up to date and reviewed regularly but that they could contain more person centred details.

We found that generally people were being cared for in a clean, hygienic environment. However we observed that equipment being used by people, such as wheelchairs, were sometimes unclean. We also noted that there were ineffective systems in place in the laundry room to help prevent the risk of the spread of infection.

Since our last visit in October 2012, records relating to the recruitment of staff in the home, general record keeping and the storage of people's personal records had improved.

31 October 2012

During a routine inspection

At the time of our visit there were 33 people receiving care at The Branksome. Some of the people living at The Branksome had dementia which meant that we were unable to have conversations with them to consistently obtain their views on their care. As such we have based some of our judgements on discussions with people's relatives, in addition to our observations.

We spoke with the relatives of three people living at The Branksome, everyone we spoke with told us they were involved in their relatives care as much as they needed to be.

Everyone we spoke with was happy with the care their relative was receiving. We were told 'the staff are very good, I am happy that (my relative) is being looked after'.

There was multi-disciplinary input into peoples care, including GP's, district nurses, specialist nurses, speech and language therapists and dentists.

A customer satisfaction survey had been completed in February 2012 which had a generally positive outcome and feedback of the results had been provided at a residents / relatives meeting.

We found that a number of different aspects of record keeping in the home were not accurate or fit for purpose. People's medical and other personal records were not kept securely.