Archived: Clarendon House

Updated 8 January 2015

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 was an unannounced inspection carried out by two inspectors and an expert by experience on 6 November 2014.  An expert by experience is a person who has experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Before the inspection we reviewed the information we held about the service. We looked at information received from relatives and other agencies involved in people’s care. We also looked at the statutory notifications the manager had sent us. A statutory notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send to us by law. We spoke with the local authority and asked them if they had information or concerns. 

We reviewed the information in the provider’s information return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

Not all the people living in the home were able to give us their views and opinions about how they were cared for, as some had varying levels of memory loss or dementia. We spent time observing care in the lounge and communal areas. We also 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 spoke with seven people who lived at Clarendon House and two relatives. We also spoke with four care staff and the registered manager.

We looked at three people’s care records to see how they were cared for and supported.  We looked at other records related to people’s care including the provider’s quality monitoring audits, staff recruitment records, records of complaints and incident and accidents at the home.

Updated 8 January 2015

The inspection took place on 6 November 2014. It was an unannounced inspection.

Clarendon House provides personal care and accommodation for up to 23 older people including those with dementia. The home is an adapted two floor building with bedrooms on both floors.   The home is suitable for people with limited mobility. At the time of our inspection there were 22 people living at Clarendon House.

The home has a registered manager. 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 who lived at Clarendon House told us they felt safe. Care staff understood their responsibilities around keeping people safe and understood what constituted abuse or poor practice. There were systems and processes in place to protect people from the risk of harm. These included a robust staff recruitment procedure and an effective procedure for managing people’s medications safely.

The registered manager understood their responsibility to comply with the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). Care staff understood how people made decisions about their daily lives and assessments were in place for people’s individual capacity to make specific decisions. Where people did not have capacity, decisions were taken in ‘their best interest’ with the involvement of family and appropriate health care professionals.

People had enough to eat and drink during the day and were supported to manage their health care needs to maintain good health. Care plans and assessments contained detailed information that supported staff to meet people’s needs.

People told us staff were respectful towards them. We observed staff were caring and supportive to people throughout our visit. We saw staff respected people’s privacy and dignity when providing care to people. People told us there were enough suitably trained staff to meet their individual care needs.

Everyone we spoke with considered staff to be kind and helpful. Staff understood how to treat people with dignity and respect. People said they felt listened to and were confident they could raise any concerns with the registered manager.

People who lived at the home, relatives and care staff said the home was well managed. People said there was a ‘friendly’ atmosphere. There were systems in place to monitor the quality of the service.