Southwell Court Care Home

Updated 14 July 2023

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

This inspection was carried out by 1 inspector and 2 Expert by Experiences. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type

Southwell Court Care Home is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing and/or personal care as a single package under one contractual agreement dependent on their registration with us. Southwell Court Care Home is a care home without nursing care. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was unannounced.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service. We sought feedback from the local authority who commission care with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We visited the service on 31 May 2023 and 1 June 2023. We made phone calls to relatives on 5 June 2023. We spoke with 12 staff members including the registered manager, deputy manager, senior care staff, care staff, kitchen staff, and 3 members of the providers senior management team. We spoke with 2 visiting healthcare professionals. We spoke with 6 people who used the service and 18 people's relatives. Not everyone living at the service was able to or wanted to speak with us, therefore we spent time observing interactions between staff and people. We reviewed a range of records. This included 7 peoples care records and multiple medicine records. We looked at 4 staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including incident and maintenance records and were reviewed.

Updated 14 July 2023

About the service

Southwell Court is a residential care home providing the regulated activity of personal care to up to 82 people. The service provides support to older adults some of whom were living with advanced dementia. At the time of our inspection there were 52 people using the service.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

Systems in place protected people from the risk of abuse and neglect. Risks were assessed, managed and monitored. People and their relatives told us they were supported by kind staff who knew them well. People received their prescribed medicines safely. We were assured that the provider was supporting people living at the service to minimise the spread of infection. Incidents and accidents were investigated and reviewed by the registered manager and senior management team.

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.

The registered manager, deputy manager and all staff worked hard to ensure the culture was open, inclusive, and person-centred. The registered manager understood their responsibility to be open and honest with people and acted appropriately when things went wrong. Quality assurance processes were used to monitor the service effectively which reduced the risk of avoidable harm. Staff worked in partnership with other health and social care professionals to ensure people’s individual needs were met.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 26 July 2019).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to the management of medicines and risks relating to people’s care and support needs. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

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 remained good based on the findings of this inspection.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from these concerns. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Southwell Court 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.