Little Acre Care Home

Little Acre Care Home is a residential care home providing accommodation and personal care to up to 14 people. At the time of our inspection there were 13 people using the service, some of whom were living with dementia-related conditions.

Little Acre Care Home provides accommodation for people in a single storey, adapted building.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People and relatives praised the friendly atmosphere in the home and described staff as caring and kind. The home had a warm and welcoming culture. Staff were engaging with people and spent time sitting with them.

Relatives and staff said the home was a safe place to live. Medicines were managed safely and the staff worked closely with local health care professionals. The provider had sufficient equipment and screening to reduce the spread of infection and there had been no cases of COVID-19 at the home throughout the pandemic.

There were enough staff to support people. Relatives had mixed views about the recent turnover of staff, but a core group of longstanding staff were still in post and were very familiar with people’s needs. People received individualised support that matched to their personal preferences.

The home was clean and comfortable but rather worn in places and bathing equipment was due for replacement. The home was small and easy to get around but was not always dementia-friendly. We have made a recommendation about this. The provider had a plan to refurbish the home over time.

People said the meals were nice and they got enough to eat and drink. People had good input from other care services to support their health needs. Staff provided sensitive and compassionate care to people when they reached the end stages of their lives.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff assisted them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service upheld this practice.

The provider had governance system to check the quality of the service. However, actions identified were not always kept under review and some records were incomplete. We have made a recommendation about this.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 21 December 2020 and this is the first inspection.

The last rating for the service under the previous provider was good, published on 11 October 2019. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Little Acre Care Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

We found the following examples of good practice.

The provider had a COVID-19 testing programme in place for people, staff and visitors. Staff were tested daily as soon as they arrived at the home.

The provider made sure all visitors were checked and tested for COVID-19 before coming into the home. Relatives spoke positively about the visiting arrangements that were facilitated by the home.

The service had a good supply of infection control resources to support the home throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The cleaning schedules had increased as a result of the pandemic. We signposted the provider to some minor improvements to the premises to support this.