Northlands House Care Home

Updated 5 March 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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team:

• The inspection team comprised two inspectors and one Expert by Experience. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service, in this case services for older people and people who used nursing services.

Service and service type:

• Northlands House Care Home is a “care home”. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as a single package under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, we looked at both 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:

• The inspection was unannounced.

What we did:

Before the inspection we looked at information we held about the service:

• We require providers to send us key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We call this the Provider Information Return. This information helps support our inspections.

• The law requires providers to notify us of certain events that happen during the running of a service. We reviewed notifications received since the last inspection.

• We reviewed the previous inspection reports.

During the inspection:

• We spoke with 11 people who lived at the home and five visitors.

• We spoke with the registered manager, the regional quality manager, and nine staff members.

• We observed care and support people received in the shared areas of the home, including a medicines round.

• We looked at the care records of seven people.

• We looked at four staff records, including training and recruitment records.

• We looked at other records to do with the management of the service.

Updated 5 March 2019

About the service:

• Northlands House Care Home is registered to accommodate a maximum of 101 service users. The home is situated in Southampton close to the city centre and provides care mainly to people with general nursing needs or a physical disability. At the time of the inspection there were 83 people living at the home

• For more details, please see the full report which is on the Care Quality Commission website at www.cqc.org.uk.

People’s experience of using this service:

• People and their visitors gave us positive feedback about all aspects of the service they received.

• One person told us, “I never thought that I’d live anywhere but my own flat but now I’m here I’m really pleased. It’s so much more peaceful here than the hospital and no mobile phones to bother me.”

• Since our last inspection the provider had made improvements to staffing levels and to their processes for notifying us of certain events.

• People received care and treatment from staff who felt valued. There was a high level of morale among staff.

• We saw caring and compassionate relationships between staff and people they supported.

• People’s care and treatment were based on records that were thorough, detailed and up to date.

• People’s care and treatment met their needs and reflected their preferences.

• There was a wide range of activities and entertainments which reflected people’s interests, choices and previous experiences.

• Management processes were thorough and methodical, including processes to make sure people received care and support in a safe environment. There was a positive, open and empowering culture.

Rating at last inspection:

• At our last inspection (published 3 February 2018) we looked at the safe and well-led key areas and rated them both requires improvement.

Why we inspected:

• This was a planned inspection based on the date of and rating at the last inspection. At the last inspection we found breaches of three regulations. The provider sent us an action plan with dates when they planned to be compliant with those regulations. At this inspection we checked that they had made and sustained those improvements.

Follow up:

• We did not identify any concerns at this inspection. We will therefore re-inspect this service within our published timeframe for services rated good. We will continue to monitor the service through the information we receive.