Archived: Edge Hill Rest Home

Updated 17 September 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 inspection took place on 7 and 8 July 2015 and day one was unannounced. The inspection was carried out by one inspector over both days. We had not, on this occasion, requested the service to complete a provider information return (PIR); this is a document that asks the provider to give us some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. However, before our inspection we reviewed the information we held about the service, including the recent concerns we had received. Based upon the information contained within the concerns received, we decided to bring forward our planned inspection of the service.

During out time in the home we observed the care and support being provided to people. 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.

During the inspection we spoke with four people who used the service, two visitors, one visiting health care professional, the cook, one housekeeper, two care staff, the assistant deputy manager, the registered manager and the provider. We looked around most areas of the home, looked at how staff cared for and supported people, looked at three people’s care records, four medicine administration records, five staff personnel files and training records and records about the management of the service.

Updated 17 September 2015

This inspection was carried out over two days on the 7 and 8 July 2015. Our visit on the 7 July was unannounced.

Prior to this inspection of the service, we received some anonymous concerns and allegations about care practices and management of the home. These concerns included, poor care of service users, infrequent toileting of service users, delays in requesting doctors, not enough staff, lack of training and poor administration of medicines. This information was also shared with the local authority safeguarding team who carried out their own investigations into the concerns and allegations. Following the investigations by the local authority, their judgement was that the anonymous concerns and allegations were unsubstantiated.

We last inspected Edge Hill Rest Home in March 2015. At that inspection we found that the service was meeting all the standards we assessed.

Edge Hill Rest Home provides care for up to 36 people. The home is a large detached house on a main road approximately one mile from Oldham town centre. There is a garden area, and a car park located at the back of the home.

There was a registered manager in post. 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.

Staff we spoke with had a clear understanding of whistle-blowing and knew they could contact people outside of the service if they felt their concerns would not be listened to or taken seriously.

We found staff recruitment to be thorough and all relevant pre-employment checks had been completed before a member of staff started to work in the home. Staff also had access to appropriate training and received regular supervision and annual appraisals.

People who used the service and the visitors we spoke with were positive and complimentary about the attitude, skills and competency of the staff team.

We looked at the way in which medicines were managed by the service. Systems were in place for the receipt, storage, administration and disposal of medicines and staff had received appropriate training to safely administer medicines. We also saw that staff had good working relationships with other health and social care professionals which helped to make sure people received appropriate and timely care and treatment.

Risk assessments had been completed for the safety of the home and we found all areas to be clean and tidy. We did however, find a number of windows that needed appropriate restrictors fitting to them to minimise the risk to people of trying to climb through them, especially in upstairs bedrooms. The registered manager immediately carried out risk assessments and took action to have restrictors or new windows fitted.

Those care records we saw contained enough information to guide staff to deliver the care and support required by people who used the service.

Systems were in place to monitor the quality of the service being provided. These systems helped to make sure people received safe and effective care.