Albany Lodge

Updated 6 June 2025

Date of assessment: 4th June 2025 to 20 June 2025. Albany Lodge provides residential nursing and personal care and support to older people, some of whom are living with dementia. At the time of the inspection there were 80 people living at the service.

This inspection was conducted by two Inspectors. As part of this comprehensive assessment, we visited the home and we looked at all the quality statements in all 5 domains of safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. We spoke with 6 people who used the service and 12 people’s relatives, the registered manager, the regional director, another director, the clinical lead and 7 staff members. We reviewed a range of records. This included 7 people's care records, medicines records and 7 staff files as well as other records relating to how the service was managed. The home had a registered manager in post.

Following this assessment, we have rated this service as requires improvement. We found breaches of the Health and Social Care Act RA Regulations 2014, Regulation 9 Person Centred Care and Regulation 17 Good Governance. A breach of Regulation 18(2)(a) was identified to do with staff receiving appropriate support, training, professional development, supervision and appraisal as is necessary to enable them to carry out the duties they are employed to perform.

Not all people or their relatives were involved in the assessments of their needs or their care plans. Some people’s relatives said they had not been involved in the process. For those people with advanced dementia, they did not have the capacity to participate in this process.

Staff did not receive specific training relating to all the needs of all the people living in Albany Lodge. Staff did not receive regular and appropriately structured support and appraisal.

People were treated with kindness and compassion. Staff protected their privacy and dignity. They treated them as individuals and supported their preferences. People had choice in their care and were encouraged to maintain relationships with family and friends.

Governance systems failed to identify the areas of concern we found at this inspection.

Updated 6 June 2025

People and their relatives provided mixed feedback to us about the care and support services they received at Albany Lodge. For those people living in the home with higher dependency needs, the feedback was not so positive. Comments from relatives reflected a lack of their involvement in the needs, risk assessment and care planning processes.

Relatives did not always feel that staff had the required level of knowledge relating to their family member’s needs or of their dementia. Some people told us they were unhappy with a lack of continuity in the support their family members received from agency or bank staff. They said this was because different members of staff [who did not know them] often supported them.

People and their relatives said communication with them from the office was good overall. They said they thought staff kept their family members safe and that staff were kind and compassionate. Comments we received indicated people enjoyed the food they received and there were positive comments about the provision of activities for those more able people living in the home.