Conifers Care Home

Updated 7 July 2022

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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

One inspector carried out the inspection.

Service and service type

Conifers Care Home is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing and/or personal care as a single package under one contractual agreement dependent on their registration with us. Conifers Care Home is a care home without nursing care. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

Registered Manager

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. 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.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was unannounced.

What we did before the inspection

The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us 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 the judgements in this report.

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority, Healthwatch and professionals who work with the service. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with two people who used the service and four relatives shared their views of the service. We spoke with five members of staff, the provider, two deputy managers, two carers and one health professional.

We had a walk around the home to make sure it was homely, suitable and safe. We observed the care and support people received. This helped us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.

We reviewed five medicine administration records, medicines stocks and storage and observed medicines administration. We reviewed four people’s care records and looked at two staff files in relation to recruitment. We looked at a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures.

Updated 7 July 2022

About the service

Conifers Care Home is a residential care home providing personal care to 12 people aged 65 and over at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to 15 people in one adapted building.

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

Medicines were stored, managed and administered as prescribed. People were safe and protected from abuse and avoidable harm. The registered manager identified risks, and this was documented to support staff and ensure people’s safety. Staff followed robust infection prevention and control procedures related to COVID-19 and other infections. Visitors were welcomed into the home and asked to follow infection prevention measures to keep people and staff safe. Staff were recruited safely, and staffing levels were flexible to support people’s needs. The registered manager had systems to learn from incidents to further improve the safety of the service.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

The management team had auditing systems to maintain ongoing oversight of the service and make improvements where necessary. Quality assurance processes ensured people and their relatives were able to give their views of the service and improvements made when they were identified.

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

Rating at last inspection and update:

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 05 May 2021).

The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

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 COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.

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

We carried out an unannounced inspection of this service on 17 January and 24 February 2021. Breaches of legal requirements were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve safe care and treatment and good governance.

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe and Well-led which contain those requirements.

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

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.