24 January 2018
During a routine inspection
At the last inspection, in November 2015 the service was rated ‘Good’ across each of the five key questions. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for ‘Park Hill Lodge’ on our website at www.cqc.org.uk’. At this inspection we found the service remained Good. However, improvements were required regarding areas such as updating policies and procedures and making sure shortfalls found when checks were made were addressed in a timely manner.
The service had a registered manager in post 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. As the manager was also registered for two other council care homes they were supported by a deputy manager, who organised the day to day running of Parkhill Lodge.
We found the service continued to assess, plan for and meet people’s individual and changing needs, and people were involved in making decisions about their care and support.
Staff had a clear understanding of safeguarding people, and care and support was planned and delivered in a way that ensured people were safe, without restricting their freedom. 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 practice.
The service continued to provide safe care. Staffing arrangements had been recently adjusted to ensure there were sufficient numbers of staff available to keep people safe and the staff recruitment process continued to be robust.
Staff were trained and supported to develop their skills and provide people with the standard of care they required.
Medication was managed safely and administered by staff who had completed appropriate training.
People were supported to receive a healthy diet and they had access to relevant healthcare services when they needed to.
People's privacy, dignity and independence were maintained by staff who were caring and respectful, and knew the people they supported very well. Care and support was delivered in a person centred way that focussed on meeting each person’s individual needs, aims and aspirations.
There were systems in place to continuously assess and monitor the quality of the service. This included obtaining people’s views and checking staff were following the correct procedures.
There were areas of the home that needed attention. Checks carried out had identified these and actions plans formulated, but timescales were not provided due to the future of the service being under consideration. However, urgent shortfalls were being addressed and there had been no negative impact on people living at the home.
Policies, procedures and other information used to inform people using the service and staff about how it intended to operate had not been reviewed regularly to ensure they were up to date.
Further information is in the detailed findings below.