Archived: Chelmer Valley Care Home

Updated 1 November 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 checked 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 inspection took place on 26 and 27 September 2017 and was unannounced. The inspection team consisted of three inspectors.

Before our inspection we reviewed information we held about the service including safeguarding alerts and other notifications. This refers specifically to incidents, events and changes the provider and manager are required to notify us about by law. We also spoke with other stakeholders such as the Local Authority (LA) and Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) who shared their concerns with us.

We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.

We spoke with eight people who used the service, eight people’s relatives, nine members of staff, the manager and the deputy manager for the service.

We reviewed 16 people’s care records and seven people’s medication administration records. We looked at the staff personnel records for four members of staff. We also looked at the service’s arrangements for the management of medicines, safeguarding, incident and accident information and quality monitoring and audit information.

Updated 1 November 2017

The inspection took place on the 26 and 27 September 2017 and was unannounced.

Chelmer Valley Care Home is nursing home registered to accommodate up to 140 residents some of whom may have dementia. At the time of our inspection 50 people were living at the service.

The service has had a new manager in post since March 2017 and they are currently going through the process to be registered with the CQC. 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.

The service was last inspected in November 2016 and was rated overall good with requires improvement in safe due to the deployment of staff. We undertook this inspection in response to concerns raised about people’s safety. This was a focussed inspection to review safe and well-led.

The service was not consistently safe. People’s medication management and administration was not always managed safely to ensure people were receiving their medication appropriately. We found some people did not have clear documentation in place to support the administration of as required medication. We also found when medication needs changed these had not been reviewed promptly.

Risk assessments did not always reflect the needs of people and the best way to support them. We observed poor moving and handling techniques being used by staff. People did not always receive effective pressure area care. Equipment used to relief pressure areas was not always used efficiently and had not been serviced.

The service was not using effective quality monitoring processes to monitor its performance or to look for ways of improving the service for people. The manager needed to improve their oversight of the service and use audits and quality monitoring to drive improvements.

Staff showed a good knowledge of safeguarding procedures and were clear about the actions they would take to protect people. Recruitment checks had been carried out before staff started work to ensure that they were suitable to work in a care setting.