Archived: Forde Park Care

Updated 2 December 2016

We undertook an unannounced focused inspection of Forde Park Care on 5 October. This inspection was done to check that improvements to meet legal requirements planned by the provider after our January 2016 inspection had been made. The team inspected the service against two of the five questions we ask about services: is the service safe? and is the service caring? This is because the service was not meeting some legal requirements.

The inspection was undertaken by one adult social care inspector. We looked at the information we held about the home before the inspection visit, including the inspection history, previous reports, action plan sent to us by the provider and information sent to us by the local authority quality improvement team.

During the inspection we met with the registered provider, the manager in day to day control of the home and the compliance manager. We spoke with four staff members and four people living at the home that were able to talk with us. To help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us due to living with dementia, we spent time carrying out a Short Observational Framework for Inspections (SOFI). SOFI is a specific way of observing care to help us understand the experiences of people who could not communicate verbally with us in any detail about their care. We spent time observing the care and support people received, including staff supporting people with their moving and transferring, eating meals and taking medicines.

We looked around the home looking at the environment for people, cleanliness and adaptation to meet people’s needs in relation to privacy and dignity. We viewed the changes to the medicines ordering systems that had been made since the last inspection and sampled records including five people’s care plans and other records in relation to their care, including records of medicines administered. We also looked at risk assessments related to people’s medicines. We discussed the home's action plans and progress being made on the issues found during previous inspections.

Updated 2 December 2016

Forde Park Care provides accommodation and nursing care for up to 34 people. The home provides care for older people living with dementia and people who have nursing needs. At the time of the inspection in October 2016, 28 people were living at the home.

We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection of this home on 25 January 2016 to see if the provider had taken action to address concerns from a previous inspection in May 2015. We found actions had been taken to respond to the previous concerns identified. However, we identified concerns relating to staff not always taking sufficient action to obtain prescribed medicines and not always identifying potential risks. We also identified a repeated concern relating to people not always being treated with dignity and respect. We served warning notices on the provider and then registered manager for breaches of Regulations 12 and 10 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activity) Regulations 2014. We gave the provider until 16 May 2016 to meet the legal requirements of the regulations.

Following the inspection the provider told us what changes they intended to make. The provider sent us an action plan telling us what actions they had taken to improve, and worked with the local authority’s quality teams to improve standards at the home.

We carried out this focused inspection on 5 October 2016. This report only covers the findings in relation to the warning notices. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection in January 2016, by selecting the 'all reports' link for Forde Park Care on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

There was not a registered manager in post at the time of this inspection, however a new manager had been employed and they had made application to CQC to be registered. 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 in October 2016 we found the manager and the provider had worked hard to improve the service. A lot of improvements had been made and the issues previously identified had been rectified. We found sufficient action had been taken to meet the requirements of the warning notices, although improvements were required in relation medicine recording systems such as paper medicines administration records (MAR). With this in mind the rating for the key question, is the service safe, remains unchanged. The manager took immediate action in response to our feedback to ensure systems for managing medicines were completely safe.

We have made a recommendation about the management of medicines.

At our previous inspection in January 2016, the key question, is the service caring, was rated as ‘Requires Improvement’ as we identified the provider was not meeting the regulations in relation to people being treated with dignity and respect. Improvements had been made and the issues previously identified had been rectified. We found sufficient action had been taken to meet the requirements of the warning notice and with this in mind we have changed the rating of this domain to 'Good'.

The manager had taken action to ensure staff spoke with people in a respectful manner and to tackle poor interactions. Since the inspection in January 2016 the manager and provider had worked with staff to change a negative culture to a more positive culture. The home had promoted staff from within to take on roles as team leaders to ensure that people were cared for well.

People who were able to, told us they felt well cared for, staff were kind and they were treated with dignity and respect. We saw staff had a good rapport with people and knew people well. There was laughter and fun. We heard staff communicating clearly and effectively.

The rating for key question, is the service caring, identified during the inspection of 25 January 2016 has changed as a result of this inspection. The rating for key question, is the service safe, remains unchanged. A comprehensive inspection will take place to inspect all five questions relating to this service. These questions ask if a service is safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. At the next inspection we will also check to ensure improvements made for this inspection have been sustained.