Archived: Holywell Dene Care Home

Updated 2 March 2015

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, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection took place on 19, 20 and 26 November 2014 and was unannounced.

Our first visit was unannounced and the inspection team consisted of an inspector and an expert by experience. This is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of service.

On the first day of our visit we focused on speaking with people who lived in the home and their visitors, speaking with staff and observing how people were cared for. The inspector returned to the home on subsequent days to look in more detail at some areas and to examine three individual staff records and records related to the running of the service.

During our inspection we spoke with six people who lived in the home, four visitors, three senior care staff, three care staff, two ancillary staff and the temporary manager. We observed care and support in communal areas, spoke with people in private and looked at the care records for five people. We also looked at records that related to how the home was managed.

We observed care and support in communal areas, spoke to people in private, and looked at care and management records.

We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a specific way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.

Before and during our inspection we reviewed the information we held about the home, including the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form in which we ask the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We reviewed notifications of incidents that the provider had sent us since the last inspection. And we contacted local commissioners of the service, GPs, district nursing teams and the challenging behaviour team who supported some people who lived at the service to obtain their views about it.

Updated 2 March 2015

Holywell Dene Care Home is a care home providing care to a maximum of 48 older people, some of whom have needs associated with dementia. 39 people were living at the service at the time of our visits. One person had been admitted for short term care. Nursing care is not provided. The accommodation is provided across three floors. The home had a registered manager who was on long term leave at the time of the inspection. A temporary manager was in charge of the home.

A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

This inspection took place on 19, 20 and 26 November 2014 and was unannounced. There were 39 people living at the service at the time of our inspection. People’s accommodation was spread across three floors. Kitchen and laundry services were located in the basement level. The service provided care to older people, some of whom were living with dementia. People living with dementia were accommodated on all three floors.

We last inspected Holywell Dene Care Home on 28 October 2013. At this inspection we found the service was meeting all the essential standards we assessed.

We found people were safe at the service. The building was clean and well maintained, no trip hazards were noted, risks were assessed and staff were trained in safety, emergency and safeguarding procedures. The service had sufficient staff on duty. Staff recruitment, staff disciplinary processes and the arrangements for managing medicines ensured, as far as possible, people were protected from harm.

People told us that they, and their families, had been included in planning and agreeing to the care provided. We saw that people had an individual plan, detailing the support they needed and how they wanted this to be provided. We found people’s support was provided as detailed in their care plans and people’s needs had been thoroughly assessed. This meant people receive support in the way they needed it.

The staff on duty knew the people they were supporting and the choices they had made about their care and their lives. Most people were supported to maintain their independence and control over their lives but one person commented that their independence was restricted due to the security of the building. This was because they felt capable of going in the garden themselves but needed staff to operate the security key pad.

People were treated with kindness and respect. They were afforded choices with regard to activities and getting out and about, though we found the menus rather restrictive. Arrangements for special diets, support with eating and presentation of food were satisfactory.

The provider monitored the service well through a combination of audits carried out by the staff at the service, quality assurance visits by the provider’s representatives, gathering of data from the service and use of surveys. We received positive comments about the temporary manager.