29 March 2023
During an inspection looking at part of the service
The Windmill Care Home is a residential care home providing personal care to up to 35 people. The service provides support to older people who may be living with dementia. At the time of our inspection there were 31 people using the service.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Since the last inspection the provider and management team had made improvements, with support from the local authority, which had benefitted the people and staff who worked there. The governance structures were in place to oversee and manage the service and take forward actions identified following the last CQC inspection and from quality and infection prevention and control visits from the local authority.
There had been a major refurbishment programme which included two new shower rooms and people’s bedrooms gradually being upgraded and the kitchen soon to be refurbished.
Staff understood how to protect people from harm or discrimination. There were sufficient numbers of staff deployed to meet people’s needs and ensure their safety. Risks to people were assessed and their safety monitored and managed.
Staff enjoyed working at the service and acknowledged the improvements which had been made. One said, “The home has come on leaps and bounds and I am proud to be able to work here and be part of the team.”
People who used the service were happy with the care and environment. One person said, “There’s not a great difference between the Ritz and here.” A relative was happy with the staff and how they treated people. They said, “The staff are very friendly, caring and approachable. They are polite to [person]. When I take [them] out, [they] can’t wait to go back. [They] give more affection to the staff than [they] does to [their relatives]! [They] always looks immaculate.”
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.
We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people. We considered this guidance as there were people using the service who have a learning disability and or who are autistic.
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 on 21 July 2021). The service had breaches of regulations. 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 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 and Well-led which contained those requirements.
We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.
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 based on the findings of this inspection.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Windmill Care Home on our 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.