Archived: Bescot Lodge

It is a requirement that the home has a registered manager in post. A manager has been appointed and has applied to become the registered manager of Bescot Lodge. 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.

People told us they felt safe living at the home. Staff knew what action to take if they had any concerns about people’s safety. People’s risks had been assessed and were managed effectively. People received their medicines as prescribed.

There were sufficient numbers of staff to support people’s needs. Staff received training and felt they had the competences to meet people’s needs. The provider had safe processes in place to recruit new staff.

People were asked for their consent before staff provided care. Staff understood people’s rights and choices when supporting them. People told us they had a choice of meals and had sufficient to eat and drink. People had access to healthcare professionals when needed. Staff were kind and caring. Staff knew people well and supported people to maintain their independence. People felt listened to and able to raise concerns they may have.

Staff understood their roles and responsibilities and felt supported by the manager. Processes were in place to listen to and respond to people’s experiences of the service and audit systems were in place to monitor the quality of care being provided.

At the last inspection in January 2015 we asked the provider to take action to make improvements to ensure that there was enough suitably skilled and experienced staff to meet people’s needs. Following this inspection the provider sent us an action plan to tell us the improvements they were going to make. We found some improvements had been made during the inspection in March 2016.

It is a requirement that the home has a registered manager in post. The registered manager left the home in March 2016. We were made aware of this by the provider during the inspection; an application to remove their name from the register has not yet been received. 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.

People told us they felt safe living at the home. Staff were aware of the different types of abuse and were confident if they raised any concerns, appropriate action would be taken. Staff were aware of risks to people’s health and well-being. There were adequate staffing levels to support people with care tasks. People told us they received their medicines safely. Staff told us they felt confident to administer medicines and they had been appropriately trained.

Staff obtained consent from people before they provided their care but had a mixed understanding of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). People were supported to have sufficient to eat and drink. However mealtimes were not a positive experience for everyone living at the home. People were supported to access healthcare professionals to ensure their health needs were met.

People told us staff were kind and caring. Staff sought to understand people’s choices and respected these. Staff promoted people’s dignity and privacy. However, care records were not always personalised to reflect how people liked their care and support needs to be met. People told us about, and we observed a lack of activities for people within the home. People were unsure how to raise complaints and the provider did not have an effective complaints system in place. People, relatives and staff were positive about the interim manager and provider and felt confident to approach them with any concerns.

There were systems in place to monitor the quality of service provided. We found that issues which had been identified by these audits had not been implemented to improve the quality of service provided to people living at the home.

At the time of our inspection there were 24 people living at the home. We spoke with ten people who lived at the home.

One person who lived at the home told us: 'We are well looked after here'.

We found that people's care needs were being adequately met. We saw that people were supported to see healthcare professionals where required.

We found the d'cor in the home to be tired and fixtures and fittings were often old and in need of updating. We could not find a plan to demonstrate when the home would be refurbished.

We found that there was an effective system in place for monitoring the availability, safety and hygiene of equipment used in the home.

We were told and saw that staff were supported and trained to provide care to people who lived at the home.

We found there was an effective system to record and respond to complaints made. People told us they would be comfortable making a complaint if they needed to.