15 June 2021
During an inspection looking at part of the service
The Shires is a care home providing personal and nursing care to 10 people with mental health care needs at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to 13 people.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Improvements needed to be driven through in the maintenance of the home, to continue to reduce the risk of infections and to enhance people’s lives further. The nominated individual gave us assurances improvements to key areas of the home would be undertaken without delay.
Governance systems required further development, so the registered manager could be assured people’s medicines were stored safely and remained effective. People’s care records did not always confirm if they had been offered care. The registered manager immediately took steps to address this.
People told us they valued living at the home, and the culture fostered by staff encouraged them to ask for support when they wanted it. People gave us examples showing how this had increased their confidence, independence, well-being and promoted their safety.
People worked with staff to identify their safety needs and to agree plans to promote their safety. Staff knew how to identify the signs of abuse and were confident senior staff would take action to support people.
There were enough staff to care for people.
Some people administered their own medicines. Where people wanted assistance to manage their medicines staff supported them. Senior staff promptly investigated medicine errors, so any learning could be taken from this. This had led to a reduction in the number of medicines errors.
Improvements had been made in the way staff were supported to develop the skills they needed to care for people. People’s needs were assessed, and staff took action to care for people. This included ensuring people had enough to eat and drink so they would remain well. In addition, people were supported to seek care from other health and social care professionals where this was needed.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
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 Requires Improvement, (published 31 August 2019).
Why we inspected
We received concerns in relation to the management of medicines and the premises. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of Safe, Effective and Well-led only.
We reviewed the information we held about the service. 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 looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.
The overall rating for the service has changed from Requires Improvement to Good. This is based on the findings at this inspection. However, we have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the Well-Led section of this full report.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Shires 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.