We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

This inspection was completed by two inspectors, a specialist advisor and an Expert by Experience. The specialist advisor had clinical experience of nursing care. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type

Holly Tree Lodge is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as a single package under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

This service is required to have a manager registered with CQC. If a manager is registered with CQC, this means both the manager and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided. At the time of this inspection, a new manager had recently started working at the service. They informed us they were going to apply for registration with CQC.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was unannounced.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and Healthwatch (Barnsley). Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with three people who used the service and six relatives about their experience of the care provided. To help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us, we used an observation method called Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). This involved observing staff interactions with people in their care, throughout the day.

We spoke with 10 members of staff, including the manager. We spoke with two community health professionals and the provider’s area manager who all visited the service during this inspection.

We reviewed a range of records. This included four people's care records and various documents from one other care record. We checked multiple medication records and a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including three staff files and various policies and procedures.

We spent time observing the daily life in the service and we looked around the building to check environmental safety and cleanliness.

After the inspection

We sought some more documents from the manager. They were provided in a timely manner and were used to inform our judgements.