During the visit to The Manor House we spoke to four people who lived at the home and to one visiting relative. We asked them what they thought about the care and support they received and people were very positive. No one said anything negative about the care. Comments included''Every single thing is lovely. I wouldn't go anywhere else.''
''Staff always know what needs doing. They would change anything if I wanted but there is no need to.''
''Oh yes I am well looked after.''
''Everybody's very nice here.''
One visiting family member told us
'Xxx is very happy here and likes xx the owner and xxx very much.''
We spoke to the district nurse team who currently provide support to the people there. We were told that the care workers have responded to some of their advice and requests and have alerted them to individuals whose health care needs have changed. The nurse team said that they felt the communication between the registered providers and the care workers was not always good. They said that sometimes they had had to ask for simple requests for things to happen a number of times.
We found the plans of care gave care staff some good information about how to support people in their preferred ways and we were told that people felt they were treated with respect and that the staff were 'kind'. We found that plans of care had risk assessments and were reviewed. However these were not always dated or signed as to who had completed the review or whether it had been shared with the individual concerned
We found that the medication storage and administering had not improved since our last review of compliance. We found medication still left out unlocked in one person's room. The keys to the controlled medication cabinet were left in an unlocked cupboard in the unlocked staff room. We were told that the morning medications had been taken out of their blister packs and put into small pots and then left on breakfast trays in an unlocked kitchen. This is clearly poor practice and leaves people at risk of receiving the wrong medications.
We saw from the staffing rota that there had been some improvements to the reduction in the long hours that the registered providers worked. However there were still three days where during the lunchtime period there was only one carer for the lunchtime period of one and a half hours, as the registered provider was also working as the carer and chef. We saw that at least two people require two carers for safe moving and handling. This means that people are at risk of not having their care needs met in a timely way when the carer is also working as a chef. We have been given assurances from the registered provider that they intend to change their rota so that there are always two carers plus a chef on at lunchtime, but they have not given us a date that this will be implemented by.