About the service The Lawns Residential Care Home is a residential care home providing accommodation and personal care for up to 41 people aged 65 and over. At the time of our inspection there were 23 people using the service.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Overall people’s individual risks were managed effectively, and they received safe care. Feedback from people and their relatives confirmed this.
Whilst the service was using a high number of agency staff they were all suitably trained and experienced enough to meet people’s care and support needs. The provider had a recruitment drive underway to reduce the requirement for the deployment of regular agency staff. All staff were recruited safely.
The provider accepted our concerns over the number of managerial changes at the service leading up to the inspection but were confident in the current structure now in place. They had communicated these changes to people and relatives including the CQC.
Quality control systems were effective in identifying issues within the service. Where an issue was identified during audits, the provider developed effective action plans to improve care and drive continuous learning.
The provider learnt lessons when things went wrong, and they encouraged continuous improvements.
Medicines were managed safely. Medicines administration record (MAR) charts were accurately completed, medicines were safely administered and when people received their medicines ‘as and when required’ the correct protocols were in place.
People and their relatives were involved in developing and reviewing their care plans and risk assessments. Care records were person-centred and contained information about people’s preferences, specific routines, their life history and interests.
Staff were caring and kind to people. Relatives spoke highly of the good work the staff team had done to ensure their family members remained well cared for and safe. 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.
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 requires improvement (published 25 June 2019)
Why we inspected
We undertook a targeted infection prevention and control inspection in line with our current regulatory approach.
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 the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively. This included checking the provider was meeting COVID-19 vaccination requirements.
We inspected and found a concern with the management of people’s skin care, so we widened the scope of the inspection to become a focused inspection. We found no evidence during this inspection people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe, effective and well-led sections of this full report.
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 Lawns residential 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.