Beech House - Halesworth

Updated 10 March 2020

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. 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 undertaken by one inspector.

Service and service type

Beech House - Halesworth 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.

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

This inspection was unannounced.

What we did before the inspection

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 reviewed the information we had received about the service since our last inspection, including notifications about specific incidents. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with five people who used the service and two people’s relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with five members of staff including the registered manager, assistant manager, care worker, activities and domestic staff. We also observed interactions between staff and people who used the service, including at lunch time and during medicines administration.

We reviewed a range of records. This included four people’s care records. We looked at two staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including audits and meeting minutes were reviewed.

After the inspection

We reviewed governance and quality assurance records sent to us by the registered manager.

Updated 10 March 2020

About the service

Beech House – Halesworth is a residential care home providing personal care to 44 older people at the time of the inspection. Some of these people were living with dementia. The service can support up to 49 people in one adapted building.

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

There were systems in place designed to reduce risks to people. This included assessing risks and providing guidance for staff in how these were to be reduced. Staffing levels were calculated to provide people with the care and support they needed. Recruitment of staff was done safely. Infection control processes reduced the risks of cross infection. Medicines were managed safely.

The service had systems in place to assess and monitor the service people received. This supported the registered manager and provider to identify potential shortfalls and address them. There was an open culture in the service and people using the service, relatives, visitors and staff were encouraged to share their views about the service. Lessons were learned, for example from incidents and people’s comments, and these were used to drive improvement.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 2 September 2017).

Why we inspected

The focused inspection was prompted in part by notification of a specific incident. Following which a person using the service died. This incident is subject to investigation. As a result, this inspection did not examine the circumstances of the incident. A decision was made to inspect the key questions Safe and Well-led only to assess if there were overall risks to people using the service and if the provider had governance systems in place. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the Safe and Well-led sections of this report. The overall rating for the service has not changed and remains good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Beech House - Halesworth on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.