About the service Poplars Care Home is a care home which can accommodate up to 14 people in one adapted building. At the time of inspection, there were 14 older people at the home, all of whom were living with dementia.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People living at the home were not always safe. There was not enough staff deployed to ensure people’s needs were meet in a person-centred way, this meant staff were task focused and spoke with people in an instructional way which did not promote their choice and independence. One person said, “They tell me what to do and I do it.”
Although staff were aware of the risks related to people’s care, the records did not always provide adequate guidance to staff on how to manage those risks. People’s medicines were not always managed safely; the home was not always clean and the systems in place to manage infection control were not always effective.
People were not always supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not always support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did not always support this practice.
Staff had access to training to enable them to meet people’s needs. However, there was not a structured induction process for staff new to the home. We have made a recommendation about developing an induction process in line with best practice.
People’s privacy and dignity was not always respected and people did not always receive support that met their religious and cultural needs. People’s wellbeing was not always enhanced though meaningful activities. One person told us, “You wake up here and go to bed here. There’s not much to look forward to.”
The provider had failed to ensure records related to people’s care were accurate and up to date; and their quality assurance processes were not robust and did not identify the concerns found during the inspection.
People’s families told us they felt involved in their relatives’ care and support decisions. The registered manager dealt with complaints in an effective way. Staff had received safeguarding training and knew what action to take if they had any concerns regarding people being abused.
Staff were aware of people who needed extra help with communication and sensory loss and supported them in a positive way. People had enough to eat and drink.
The registered manager was aware of their responsibility under their registration. The rating from the previous inspection was published on their website and they notified the appropriate authority when appropriate.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Enforcement
We have identified breaches in relation to staffing levels, the management of risk, the safe management of medicines, delivering person centred care, respecting people’s dignity and privacy, maintaining up to date and accurate records and a lack of an effective quality assurance process at this inspection.
Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.
Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to the more serious concerns found during inspections is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded.
Follow up
We will meet with the provider following this report being published to discuss how they will make changes to ensure they improve their rating to at least good. We will work with the local authority to monitor progress. We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.
The overall rating for this service is ‘inadequate’ and the service is therefore in ‘special measures’. This means we will keep the service under review and, if we do not propose to cancel the provider’s registration, we will re-inspect within 6 months to check for significant improvements.
If the provider has not made enough improvement within this timeframe and there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall rating, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures. This will mean we will begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will usually lead to cancellation of their registration or to varying the conditions the registration.
For adult social care services, the maximum time for being in special measures will usually be no more than 12 months. If the service has demonstrated improvements when we inspect it and it is no longer rated as inadequate for any of the five key questions it will no longer be in special measures.