Willowcroft Care Home

Updated 15 March 2022

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.

As part of CQC’s response to care homes with outbreaks of COVID-19, we are conducting reviews to ensure that the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practice is safe and that services are compliant with IPC measures. This was a targeted inspection looking at the IPC practices the provider has in place. We also asked the provider about any staffing pressures the service was experiencing and whether this was having an impact on the service.

This inspection took place on 24 February 2022 and was unannounced.

Updated 15 March 2022

About the service

Willowcroft Care Home is a specialist residential care home providing personal and nursing care to people with mental health needs, including people living with dementia. There were 37 people using the service at the time of the inspection.

Willowcroft Care Home can accommodate up to 40 people over three floors.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People received very kind and caring support by staff who took the time to get to know them. We were given lots of examples of how people had been supported to maintain their independence and achieve positive outcomes.

The service had an good person-centred approach which was embedded in all areas of practice. The provider and registered manager worked effectively together to ensure high levels of quality monitoring and continuous improvement. There were comprehensive robust systems, policies and procedures in place to ensure the safety of people.

People were kept safe and relatives felt their loved ones were in secure hands. There were enough staff on duty to meet people’s individual needs. The service had an effective approach to risk management. Infection control processes were in place and medicines were well managed.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 21 November 2019).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to the quality of care delivered at night-time. As a result, we undertook a focused night-time inspection to review the key questions of safe, caring and well-led only.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe, caring and well-led sections of this full report.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to coronavirus and other infection outbreaks effectively.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Willowcroft Care Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.