About the service Elm Lodge is a 'care home' with nursing. The service is registered to support up to 75 older people, some who may be living with dementia. At the time of the inspection 69 people were living at the service. The London Borough of Ealing funded or partly funded all the people who lived at the service. This is because they have a contract for the places there.
The home is divided into 5 units. Each unit can accommodate up to 15 people. The units have their own communal lounges and dining rooms.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
We identified some medicines practices where improvements were needed. We also identified a small number of health and safety hazards. We discussed these with the registered manager and staff. They assured us about the action they had taken to make the improvements and to help prevent a repeat of these incidents. There was no indication people were harmed and we were satisfied the provider's action had improved the quality and safety of the service.
People told us they were well cared for and supported. They liked the staff and felt their needs were met.
The staff had assessed the risks to people's safety and had created plans to describe how they should be cared for. People felt able to contribute their views and were listened to.
There were suitable systems for dealing with accidents, incidents, complaints and learning when things went wrong.
There were a range of suitable audits which helped to ensure the quality of the service was monitored and improved.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection and update
The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 19 January 2022).
The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve.
At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.
Why we inspected
We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection of this service on 8 December 2021. Breaches of legal requirements were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve safe care and treatment and good governance.
We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe, Responsive and Well-led.
For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
For more information, please read the detailed findings section of this report. If you are reading this as a separate summary, the full report can be found on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) website at www.cqc.org.uk
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.