Archived: Sunningdale Nursing Home Limited

Updated 10 January 2017

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is 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 focused inspection took place on 23 November 2016 and was unannounced. The inspection team consisted of two adult social care inspectors to check that improvements to meet legal requirements identified after our comprehensive inspection on 3 & 6 May 2016 had been made.

We inspected the service against four of the five questions we ask about services; is the service safe, is the service effective, is the service responsive and is the service well led. This is because the service was not meeting legal requirements in relation to these questions.

Prior to the inspection we looked at the notifications and other intelligence the Care Quality Commission [CQC] had received about the home. We contacted the commissioners of the service to see if they had any updates about the service.

At this inspection we looked at records in respect of the management of medicines [including medicine administration sheets], staff training and support, people’s plan of care and quality assurance processes and systems [including service audits]. We spoke with two people who were living at the home, two registered nurses and three care staff. The registered manager was not on duty at the time of the inspection though we spoke with them following the inspection.

Updated 10 January 2017

We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection of this service in May 2016 when four breaches of legal requirements were found. We found a breach in regulation regarding the safe management of medicines, people’s care not being planned effectively, a lack of arrangements to ensure staff were appropriately supported in their roles and responsibilities and systems in place to regularly assess and monitor the quality of the service were not effective.

We asked the provider to take action to address these concerns. After the comprehensive inspection, the provider wrote to us to tell us what they would do to meet legal requirements in relation to the breaches.

We undertook a focused inspection on 23 November 2016 to check that they had they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the specific area / breach of regulation. This covered four questions we normally asked of services; whether they are 'safe', ‘effective’, ‘responsive’ and ‘well led’. Was the service ‘caring’ was not assessed at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for ‘Sunningdale Nursing Home' on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

We found the service had made improvements and all but one of the breaches we had previously found in May 2016, had now been met. Although medicines management had been improved overall, we still had some on-going concerns and medicines remains in breach of regulation.

Sunningdale Nursing Home caters for the nursing needs of older people. It can accommodate up to 32 people.

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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

At this inspection we reviewed the management of medicines. We found improvements overall but there were still areas of concern and therefore the service had not fully met this requirement. We found improvements were needed to record and monitor the application of creams and the thickening agents for fluids.

At our last inspection in May 2016 we found people’s care planning lacked sufficient detail to help ensure their care needs were being effectively monitored and evaluated. In some instances people’s care needs was not included or updated in the care planning.

We found people’s care planning had improved. Care plans had sufficient detail to help ensure people’s care needs were being effectively monitored and evaluated.

At our last inspection in May 2016 we found staff were not fully supported in their roles and responsibilities.

We reviewed the training and support for staff to prepare and support them in their role. We found support was better planned and staff were up to date with their training needs being met. Staff told us there had been a lot of work completed to meet the breach of regulation and that they felt well support to carry out their work. They described a positive learning culture in the home.

At our last inspection in May 2016 we had concerns around the systems in place to monitor the service.

We found action had been taken to improve the management and governance of the service. There were clearer and more effective systems to monitor standards and to further develop the service.

We however made a recommendation that there were more rigorous auditing of medicines so as to improve the overall management of medicines in the home.

You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of this report.