Updated 19 February 2024
Balmoral Court is a care home providing accommodation and nursing and personal care to older people and younger adults. The service can support up to 99 people. People are accommodated in four units, including a male only and a female only unit. People are supported with physical and mental health needs, including people living with a dementia related condition. We carried out an onsite and off-site assessment. At the time of the inspection the service supported 92 people with personal and or nursing care. Activity started on 12 March 2024 and ended on 19 April 2024. We spoke with 7 people, 13 relatives, staff and management and received feedback from health and social care professionals. We looked at 25 quality statements. We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it. At this assessment we found 4 breaches of regulation where improvements were needed to the environment, records, medicines, staff recruitment and the duty of candour. Areas of the home were dirty and some equipment was not safe for use, staff recruitment was not always carried out safely, and risk assessments and care plans were in place but the information recorded was not always detailed. Medicines records required improvement relating to covert medicines, ‘as and when required’ administration protocols, as well as processes to manage topical medicines. There was a lack of understanding about the actions to take in response to a notifiable safety incident. A system of quality audits were in place, but these had not identified the issues we found at our visits.