Archived: Herons Park Nursing Home

Updated 18 September 2018

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, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection site visit took place on 14 and 15 August 2018. The 14 August 2018 visit was unannounced, we told the registered manager we were returning on the 15 August 2018 to complete the inspection visit. This inspection included speaking with people, relatives and staff. We reviewed care records and policies and procedures. The inspection team consisted of one inspector, a specialist advisor who is a nurse and one expert by experience who had experience of care home services. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

As part of the inspection we reviewed information we held about the service including statutory notifications that had been submitted. Statutory notifications include information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We contacted the Local Authority and the Clinical Commissioning Group to understand if they had any relevant information to share with us.

Due to technical problems on our part, we had not received the Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. The registered manager gave us this report during the inspection visit. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.

We spoke with 11 people who used the service and two relatives who supported their family member with the management of their care. We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us. We also spoke with four care staff, two nurses, the activities co-ordinator, the chef, the maintenance person, two-unit leaders who were also nurses and the registered manager. We looked at aspects of five people’s care records and 18 medication records. We also looked at staffing rotas, staff and people’s meeting minutes, complaints, the checks for the nurse registration, incidents and accidents and checks of records completed by the registered manager and provider.

Updated 18 September 2018

This inspection took place 14 and 15 August 2018 and was unannounced, which means they did not know we were coming. At our last inspection we rated the service good. At this inspection we found the evidence continued to support the rating of good and there was no evidence or information from our inspection and on-going monitoring that demonstrated serious risks or concerns. This inspection report is written in a shorter format because our overall rating of the service has not changed since our last inspection.

Herons Park Nursing Home is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

Herons Park accommodates 82 people across three separate floors, each of which have separate adapted facilities. One of the area specialises in providing care to people living with dementia.

There was a registered manager in place at the time of our inspection. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People continued to tell us they felt safe living in the home. Staff showed good knowledge in how they were to protect people from harm, and recognised the signs of abuse and knew how to report this. Staff had identified potential risks to people and had put plans in place to reduce the risk of harm, without taking away people’s right to make decisions about their care. People were supported by enough staff to keep them safe and meet their needs. People’s medicines were managed in a safe way. Staff carried out safe practice to reduce the risk of infection.

People’s care continued to be assessed and reviewed with external healthcare professionals involved and listened to. People were supported to have a healthy balanced diet and where people required additional support with their eating and drinking staff knew who required this support. 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 support this practice. Staff worked with external healthcare professionals and followed their guidance and advice about how to support people.

Staff treated people as individuals and respected the choices they made. People were treated with respect and their dignity was promoted. People care was delivered in a responsive way, with any changes in care being communicated clearly to the staff team. People were supported to maintain their hobbies and interests. People had access to information about how they could complain about the service. Where the registered manager had received complaints, these had been responded to, with a satisfactory outcome and learning shared.

People told us they had the opportunity to raise their suggestions and ideas about how the service was run and these were listened to. Staff were supported by the registered manager and provider to carry out their roles and responsibilities effectively, through training and daily contact. People, relatives and staff felt the registered manager was approachable and listened to them. We found checks the registered manager and the provider completed on the service focused upon the experiences of people.