Scholars Mews Care Home

Updated 10 June 2024

Date of assessment: 1 July to 9 July 2024. Scholars Mews Care Home is a residential care home providing accommodation with personal care for up to 64 people. At the time of our assessment, 30 people lived at the home. This assessment was completed due to the significant concerns identified at the last inspection where the home was rated inadequate and placed into special measures. We assessed all 34 quality statements under all five key questions of safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. The home had made improvements and was no longer in breach of the regulations and is now rated good. People were now safeguarded from the risk of abuse and avoidable harm because safeguarding systems had improved. Staff understood their responsibility to keep people safe and reported concerns in a timely way. Where injuries occurred, these were now reported, recorded and investigated. Overall, risks to people's health and wellbeing were now identified, monitored and managed safely. Medicines were managed safely. There were now enough suitably skilled and competent staff who had received sufficient training. Infection prevention and control processes were managed well. Staff treated people with kindness and compassionate and encouraged people to do things meaningful to them. Staff promoted person centred care. Quality checks were now effective and identified areas for improvement. Although there continued to be no registered manager in post, the regional director has based at the home full time and had applied to become registered with us during our assessment until a permanent registered manager had been recruited. However, we also identified some areas where improvements were needed such as records related to consent, mental capacity assessments, records to support a safe transition between services, the monitoring of changes to people's health and involving people and their relatives in people's care.

Updated 10 June 2024

During our assessment, people and relatives talked about the various improvements at the home since our last inspection. One relative told us, "It has improved from a year ago. Everything seems better. More staff have come in and it certainly made a difference. The care has improved." Another relative told us, "It has improved from before. We get phone calls and messages when needed, and I can speak to staff anytime. I have no concerns now." Previously, relatives raised concerns that people were not protected from the risk of abuse which was substantiated during our last inspection. During this assessment relatives told us improvements had been made and people were now protected from the risk of abuse. People told us they felt safe. One person said, "I feel well protected, the carers are quite respectful and caring, never rough." People and relatives spoke positively about the caring and supportive nature of staff and described them as being 'respectful' and 'caring.' Our observations also confirmed this. People and relatives told us there had been improvements in the numbers of staff on duty and that staff had the right skills to care for people in the way they preferred. One person told us, "At the beginning of the year they were very short of staff but I’m fairly happy with the staff levels now." A relative commented, "It is getting better slowly." People could access general medical care when they needed it. People and their relatives did not always feel involved with the reviewing of their care and had not always seen care plan. People and relatives had gained, or were gaining trust in the provider. They told us more frequent meetings were happening and the regional director who was managing the home was approachable and listened to them. However, they were concerned whether standards of care would decline when the regional director returned to their substantive position and a new manager was recruited.