During an assessment under our new approach
Date of assessment: 27 May 2025 to 25 June 2025. Forest Lodge is a residential care home providing accommodation and support with personal and nursing care. It provides support to men with such needs as mental health conditions, acquired brain injury, dementia and nursing care. The service is registered to accommodate 43 people and at the time of our visit there was 40 people living there.
It is a requirement that the manager of a care home registers with the Care Quality Commission. Whilst there was no registered manager in post when we visited there was a manager of the service who had recently been confirmed in post and was in the process of registering with the CQC.
We had previously assessed the service in October 2024. At that assessment the service was rated overall as good. However, Following our recent visits our rating for this service has changed to requires improvement and we have asked the provider for an action plan.
We found a breach of regulation 12, safe care and treatment. There were times when we saw people received support to eat and drink which was not safe and did not follow best practice. The provider did not have systems and practices in place that always kept people safe. There were occasions when discrepancies occurred in recording the administration of medicine’s which meant that it could not be guaranteed that it was administered in a safe way. Information about people’s safety was not always up to date or clear. We saw incidents recording serios threats of violence which included using a cutlery knife which had not been recorded in the person’s risk assessment. Information about people’s violence and aggression was not clear. Detail describing the violence and aggression and the techniques used to manage it were not recorded clearly in people’s plans meaning staff did not have instruction on how to manage it to keep other people and themselves safe.
We found the provider had enough staff working in the service including nursing and care staff and that staff turnover was low.
We saw people treated with kindness and compassion by staff supporting them. Staff clearly had a good knowledge of the people and used the training they received to meet a variety of needs within the service.
Staff and management were able to describe the values and purpose of the organisation and were committed to creating the best possible service for the people in their care.