Updated 4 June 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 was carried out by an inspector and an 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 instance, in the care of person living with a learning disability.
Service and service type:
Ashridge is registered as a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. The Care Quality Commission (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:
We gave the provider 48 hours’ notice of our inspection. This was because we wanted to be sure that the people who lived there would be in.
Inspection site visit activity started on 28 February 2019 and we returned on 5 March 2019.
What we did:
Before the inspection we reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. This included an action plan detailing the actions the provider would take following the outcome of our last inspection.
We used information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made judgements in this report.
During our inspection 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 speak with us. We spoke with the registered manager, the deputy manager, a peripatetic manager, quality improvement lead for the provider, two members of care staff, the head chef, the housekeeper and nine people who lived at the service. We also spoke with six relatives by telephone. A peripatetic manager is appointed by the provider to move between services to support registered managers.
We looked at a range of records related to the running of and the quality of the service. These included risk assessments, three staff recruitment and induction files, staff training information and arrangements for managing complaints. We looked at the quality assurance processes that the registered manager had completed. We also looked at care plans and daily care records for nine people and three medicine administration records.