Background to this inspection
Updated
16 April 2015
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
This inspection was undertaken by two inspectors and took place on 26 January 2015. The inspection was unannounced.
Before the inspection we asked the provider to complete and return a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and any improvements they plan to make. The provider completed and returned the PIR form to us and we used this information as part of our inspection planning. We spoke with one social worker in the local authority.
We looked at other information that we held about the service including notifications, which are events that happen in the service that the provider is required to inform us about by law.
During the inspection we spoke with eight people who used the service, two relatives and one visiting hairdresser. We interviewed four members of staff, the care manager and the manager of the service. We observed how staff treated and spoke with people.
As part of this inspection we looked at three people’s care plans and care records. We reviewed three staff recruitment files. We looked at other records such as accident and incident reports, complaints and compliments, medicine administration records, quality monitoring and audit information and policies and procedures.
Updated
16 April 2015
We undertook this unannounced inspection of Care UK Community Care Services Friary Court Extra Care Scheme on 26 January 2015.
At our last inspection in December 2013 the provider was meeting the regulations that we assessed.
Care UK Community Care Services Friary Court Extra Care Scheme provides personal care services within Friary Court. At the time of our inspection 26 people were receiving a personal care service. This included six people in rehabilitation beds that are provided in partnership with intermediate care services run by the NHS. The six people in the rehabilitation beds have six weeks of care to either improve their health to enable them to return home, or to make an application to request a permanent place in Friary Court.
Friary Court is located on the edge of the city of Peterborough.
The service did not have a registered manager in post, but an application to register a manager had been made at the time of the inspection. 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.
There were poor arrangements for the management of medicines which meant that people were put at risk of not receiving their medicines as prescribed.
The risk of harm for people was reduced because staff knew how to recognise and report abuse. There was a recruitment process in place and only suitable staff had been employed. There were sufficient staff numbers to meet people’s care and support needs but the deployment of staff needed to be improved.
Staff received an induction when they first started working and were supported in their roles through regular supervision with arranged dates for annual appraisals.
People found the staff and managers to be caring and kind. Improvements needed to be made to ensure people’s privacy and dignity were respected and confidential information was secured.
The manager had identified that care plans needed to be improved because they had not been written in detail nor been updated, which could lead to inconsistent care being provided. They had put actions in place to bring about improvement in these so that staff had sufficient guidance to help them meet the needs of the people they provided care to.
The management team was accessible and approachable so that staff and people could raise any concerns.
Improvements were needed to ensure there were arrangements in place so that staff knew how or to whom to escalate any minor concerns. The manager and care manager had started to review the quality of the service provided so that people could be confident their needs could be met.
We found one breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.