Updated 6 April 2019
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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
The inspection was prompted in part by concerns regarding staffing levels, late and missed calls.
Inspection team:
The inspection team consisted of one inspector and an 'expert by experience'. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. In this instance their area of expertise was in people living with dementia, older people and long-term health conditions.
Service and service type:
St Crispin Village provides care and support to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. The accommodation is provided under a shared ownership leasehold or rented and is the occupant’s own home. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for extra care housing; this inspection looked at people’s personal care service.
St Crispin Village is a large community of 270 apartments and bungalows in one location in the village of Duston.
The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. 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.
Notice of inspection:
We gave the service short notice of the inspection visit because the manager is often out of the office supporting staff. We needed to be sure that they would be in.
Inspection site visit activity started on 27 February and ended on 28 February 2019. We visited the office location on 27 February to see the manager, office and care staff; and to review care records, policies and procedures. We visited people in their homes on the 27 February and made calls to people’s relatives and staff on the 28 February 2019.
What we did:
Due to technical problems in requesting a Provider Information Return, the provider was not able to complete this. 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. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as abuse; and we sought feedback from the local authority and other professionals who work with the service. We used this information to plan our inspection.
During this inspection we spoke with three people who received personal care, and the relatives of three people. We spoke with 10 members of staff including the scheme manager, the registered manager, the village manager, a team leader, the activity co-ordinator, the wellbeing co-ordinator and four caregivers.
We reviewed three people's care records to ensure they were reflective of their care needs and other documents relating to the management of the service such as policies, audits, meeting minutes and safeguarding records.
Following the location visit we requested copies of documentation from the registered manager that was not available during our inspection visit. For example, medicines audits, care forum minutes, survey outcomes and four staff recruitment files. Staff recruitment files had been sent to the human resources team for review prior to the inspection. Documentation was received following the inspection.