Dove House Residential Home

Updated 22 March 2018

This inspection visit took place on the 9 February 2018 and was unannounced. The inspection visit was carried out by one inspector.

On this occasion we did not ask the provider to complete a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually 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 and gave the provider an opportunity to provide us with further information. All this information was used to formulate our inspection plan.

We spent time observing care and support in the communal areas. We observed how staff interacted with people who used the service. We spoke with seven people who used the service and two relatives. We also spoke with six members of care staff, the deputy manager, the registered manager and a director of the company. We also gained the views of the Practice manager of a local GP Surgery and a health care professional. We did this to gain people's views about the care and to check that standards of care were being met.

We looked at the care records for four people and we checked that the care they received matched the information in their records. We also looked at records relating to the management of the service, including medicine records, quality checks and audits and staff files.

Updated 22 March 2018

Dove House is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection. At the time of the inspection there were 18 people using the service.

At our last inspection we rated the service good. At this inspection we found the evidence continued to support the rating of good and there was no evidence or information from our inspection and on going monitoring that demonstrated serious risks or concerns. This inspection report is written in a shorter format because our overall rating of the service has not changed since our last inspection.

At this inspection we found the service remained Good.

People continued to receive safe care. There were enough staff to support people and staff were recruited to ensure that they were safe to work with people. People were protected from the risk of harm and received their prescribed medicines safely. Lessons were learnt from when mistakes happened.

The care that people received continued to be effective. They were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. Staff received training and support to be enable them to care for people well. People were supported to maintain a diet that met their requirements and they received support from health care professionals to ensure their well-being was maintained. Health concerns were monitored to ensure people received specialist health care intervention when this was needed. The environment met people’s needs.

People continued to have positive relationships with the staff who were caring and treated them with respect and kindness. There were opportunities for people to get involved in activities and pursue their interests. Staff knew people well and understood how to provide the care they wanted. People had a support plan which was reviewed with them and they knew how to raise a concern or make a complaint; all concerns were acted upon.

People were included in developing the service and found the registered manager approachable. There were processes in place for people to express their views and opinions about the service provided. There were systems in place to monitor the quality of the service. The registered manager worked with other professionals to continue to raise standards in the home and to drive improvement within the care environment.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.