Briarlea Care Home

Updated 23 March 2021

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

As part of CQC’s response to the coronavirus pandemic we are looking at the preparedness of care homes in relation to infection prevention and control. This was a targeted inspection looking at the infection control and prevention measures the provider has in place.

This inspection took place on 10 March 2021 and was announced.

Updated 23 March 2021

About the service: Briarlea Care Home is a care home providing care for up to 31 older people, some of whom live with dementia. There were 27 at the time of the inspection.

People’s experience of using this service:

People were very positive about their life at the home, and the close bonds they had developed with each other and the staff who supported them.

People and their relatives were complimentary about the way the home was managed.

There were sufficient staff to care for people and staff promptly supported people when they wanted assistance. Staff understood the risk to people’s safety and took action to reduce these.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this.

Staff understood what mattered to people and supported people to achieve the best health and well-being possible, including when people were at the end of their lives.

People had opportunities to do things which they enjoyed, and which responded to their individual needs.

Staff supported people to have their medicines safely and checks were undertaken to ensure these were administered as prescribed.

People, relatives, and other health and social care professionals were consulted when people’s care was assessed, planned and reviewed, so people’s needs continued to be met.

Staff had received training and developed the skills they needed to care for people, through induction and on-going training.

The registered manager kept up to date with best practice developments, so they could improve the care provided further.

Systems were in place to take any learning from complaints, accidents or incidents and to further improve people’s care.

The registered manager and provider checked the quality of the care provided and developed the service and based suggestions from people, their relatives and staff.

Rating at last inspection: Good. The last report for Briarlea Care Home was published on 16 December 2016.

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the rating at the last inspection. The service remained rated Good overall.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our inspection programme. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk