Archived: St Paul's Care Home

Updated 21 March 2016

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 was 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.

We visited St Paul’s Care Home on 17 February 2016. The inspection was unannounced. The inspection team consisted of a single inspector.

Before we carried out our inspection visit we looked at the information we held about the home such as notifications, which are events that happened in the home that the provider is required to tell us about. We also looked at information that had been sent to us by other agencies such as service commissioners.

The registered provider also completed a Provider Information Return (PIR) and submitted this to us in advance of our inspection. This is a form the provider completes to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. The provider returned the PIR to us and we took the information it contained into account when we made our judgements in this report.

During our inspection we spent time observing how staff provided care for people to help us better understand their experiences of the care they received. In addition, we undertook a Short Observation Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a specific way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not speak directly with us.

As part of our inspection we looked at three people’s care records. We spoke with five people who lived in the home and four relatives who were visiting on the day of our inspection.

We also spoke with the registered manager of the home, the senior registered nurse, three members of the care staff team, the cook, the homes administrator, one of the home’s activities organiser’s and the maintenance staff member.

We looked at the records related to three staff recruitment files, staff training records, supervision and appraisal arrangements and staff duty rotas. We also looked at information regarding the arrangements for monitoring and maintaining the overall quality of the service provided within the home.

Updated 21 March 2016

St Paul’s Care Home is situated in the village of Waddington, close to the city of Lincoln. The home is registered to provide care for up to 22 people who require residential and nursing care support. Some of the people who live at the service may also experience memory loss associated with conditions such as dementia.

We inspected the home on 17 February 2016. There were 18 people living in the home at the time of our inspection.

At the time of our inspection the service had a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the CQC 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.

CQC is required by law to monitor the operation of the Mental Capacity Act, 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) and to report on what we find. DoLS are in place to protect people where they do not have capacity to make decisions and where it is considered necessary to restrict their freedom in some way, usually to protect themselves. At the time of the inspection one person who used the service had their freedom restricted in order to keep them safe and the provider had acted in accordance with the MCA and DoLS.

People and their relatives were involved in planning the care and support provided by the home. Staff listened to people and understood and respected their needs. Staff also understood how to identify report and manage any concerns related to people’s safety and welfare.

Staff cared for people in a kind, friendly and respectful way. Staff reflected people’s wishes and preferences in the way they delivered care and understood how to meet each person’s individual choices, and preferences. People had been fully consulted about how their care needs should be met and about the arrangements they wanted to be made at the end of their lives.

People were supported by staff to be able to access a range of external healthcare professionals when they required any additional specialist support. People’s medicines were managed in a safe way.

People had access to a range of nutritious meals and drinks in order to keep them healthy. People were supported to enjoy a wide range of activities and pursue their personal interests. This included people living with dementia.

People and their relatives could freely express their views, opinions and any concerns to the registered manager and staff. The registered provider, the registered manager and staff listened to what people had to say and took action to resolve any issues when they were raised with them. There were clear systems in place for handling and resolving any formal complaints. The registered manager reviewed and reflected on concerns or untoward incidents and took any additional actions needed to keep developing and improving practices for the future.

Staff were appropriately recruited to ensure they were suitable to work with vulnerable people. They had received training and support to deliver a good quality of care to people. An active training programme was in place to support staff to maintain and develop their skills.

People living at the home, their family and visiting health and social care professionals were invited to comment on the quality of the services provided. Audits were in place to identify any issues with the quality of care and actions were taken to improve the service.