Archived: Acton Care Centre

Updated 14 September 2016

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

This inspection took place on 15 August 2016 and was unannounced.

The inspection team included two inspectors, a nurse specialist advisor and an expert-by-experience. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. The expert-by-experience supporting this inspection had personal experience of caring for a relative.

Before the inspection visit we looked at all the information we held about the service. This included the last inspection report and the provider's action plan, notifications of significant events and safeguarding alerts. We also contacted external professionals who worked with people who lived at the service and received feedback from three of these.

During the inspection we spoke with 12 people who lived at the home, seven of their visiting friends and relatives, two visiting healthcare professionals and the staff on duty, who included the general manager, nurses, healthcare assistants, catering staff, domestic staff and the activities coordinator. We observed how people were being cared for and supported. We looked around the environment. We looked at how medicines were being managed, which included how they were stored, administered and recorded. We also looked at all or some aspect of the care records for 13 people, the records of staff training and support, the recruitment records for four members of staff, records of complaints and records the provider maintained to show how they audited the service and monitored quality.

Updated 14 September 2016

The inspection took place on 15 August 2016 and was unannounced.

The last inspection took place 16 and 17 November 2015, when we found breaches in Regulations relating to medicines management, consent to care and treatment and good governance. The inspection of 15 August 2016 was carried out to look at whether the provider had met these breaches. The provider had supplied us with an action plan on 13 January 2016 telling us that they would make the necessary improvements by 31 January 2016. At this inspection we found that improvements had been made. However, we found that there were still some areas around medicines management, risk management and record keeping which required further improvements.

Acton Care Centre is a care home with nursing registered for up to 125 older people and younger adults (people under 65 years old). The home is divided into five units. Two of the units, Donald Sword and Garden unit, were dedicated for people living with the experience of dementia. The other three units, Oak, Park and Westerly, provided care for people with complex healthcare needs, which included some people receiving care at the end of their lives.

The service is managed by Vintage Care Limited which is part of the Catalyst Housing Group – a housing association based in London and the South East.

There was a registered manager in post. 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.

People felt the service met their needs and the staff were kind and caring. The permanent staff had a good knowledge of people's needs and how to care for them. However, the service employed a large amount of temporary staff and there was a risk that people's needs would not always be met because care records were not always accurate or individualised.

There had been improvements in the way medicines and risks were managed. However, the records around these areas were not always clear or detailed enough and people were at risk of receiving inappropriate and unsafe care because of this.

The provider had improved the way in which people's consent to care and treatment was obtained. They had carried out comprehensive mental capacity assessments and included this information in the way they planned care for each person.