Archived: Oakleigh House

Oakleigh House is a care home for up to five people that specialises in the care and support of people with mental health conditions. There were no vacancies when we inspected.

The service had a registered manager. 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The registered manager was not present at the inspection, but an additional manager was carrying out the day to day running of the service.

People told us that staff provided a very supportive service that was focussed on their needs, and that they liked living at the service. People chose and joined in with a range of recreational and educational activities.

However, we found that the care and support reviewing process and other care documents relating to people contained occasional inaccuracies and omissions. This meant the reviewing process was not fully responsive to people’s particular needs and preferences.

The service did not consistently work in line with the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, although it was evident that efforts were made to do so.

We found that people were well supported with health and nutritional needs. This matched feedback we received from people using the service and healthcare professionals. With the support of community healthcare professionals, the service had improved people’s quality of life.

People lived in a safe and risk-assessed environment. The service had systems for protecting people from abuse, and for managing people’s medicines safely.

The service had an adequate staff recruitment procedure and there were enough staff working at the service. There was a consistency of staffing, which helped people’s needs and preferences to be well-known. This enabled positive, caring relationships to develop.

People felt valued and respected as individuals, and were involved in decision-making about their care and support. Care was centred on people’s individual needs.

The service had a positive culture that was focussed on the development of people using the service and supporting staff. Staff received sufficient training and supervision for their work of supporting people.

Any concerns with how the service operated were discussed and addressed, and so people had confidence in the service’s complaints procedure.

The service used a range of quality-auditing approaches to review and improve on service quality, and so was well-managed overall.

We found one breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we have told the provider to take at the back of the full version of this report.

Is the service safe?

Is the service effective?

Is the service caring?

Is the service responsive?

Is the service well-led?

This inspection was carried out to assess what the provider had done in response to the action we had told them to take following our last inspection. This was in relation to the safe management of medicines.

This is a summary of what we found-

Is the service safe?

We found the service was safe because people were protected against the risks associated with medicines.

At our last inspection in December 2013, we found a number of issues with the way medicines were managed which meant that safe and effective arrangements were not in place to ensure that people were receiving their medicines as prescribed.

The provider wrote to us stating that they had taken action and had made the necessary improvements by 18 January 2014.

During this inspection we looked at recording and storage of medicines. We found that there were no omissions in records and our audits of stock evidenced the accuracy of the records.

People living in the home were unable to speak to us on this occasion.

We saw that each person had a medication administration record (MAR). However, we found that three of these only contained the person’s name; staff had not recorded the doctors’ details, allergies or date of birth. One person's MAR sheet had not been completed while they were on leave. By not having the correct information on peoples medication records staff may have been unaware of important information such as allergies. Appropriate arrangements were not in place in relation to recording of medication.

People we spoke with were happy with the facilities in the home and had no complaints. One person said, I’ve got lots of hot water, my room is warm, but I would like a chair in my room.” Another said, “It’s nice here.”

We saw staff files contained application forms references, job descriptions, photographic identification such as a passport and disclosure and baring service (DBS) checks.

Effective systems were not in place to identify, assess and manage risk to health and welfare of people using the service and others. For example the deputy manager told us she completed several audits however, the kitchen cleaning audits which we saw should have been completed daily had not been completed since 29 November 2013.