Archived: Birchwood - Newbury

Updated 16 June 2017

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 under the Care Act 2014, specifically in the domain of ‘safe’.

This was a focused inspection, with one inspector completing both days – 8 and 9 May 2017. We inspected the service against one of the five key questions we ask about services: is the service safe? This area was specifically focused on following a serious safeguarding notification. We specifically looked at how staff were recruited, deployed and whether appropriate measures were taken to prevent the possibility of abuse.

Before completing the inspection, we looked at information we had on the incident, with phone calls being generated to gather further information. During the inspection we spoke with six members of staff, including the registered manager, the deputy manager, the clinical lead, unit manager, support and domestic staff. We spoke with three people who use the service and two visitors.

Records related to people’s support were seen for nine people. In addition, we looked at a sample of records relating to the management of the service. For example staff records, risk assessments, care plans, safeguarding notifications and staff training. Staff recruitment and supervision records for ten of the staff team were reviewed.

Updated 16 June 2017

This inspection took place on 8 and 9 May 2017. This was a focused responsive inspection, to concerns that had been raised through a recent safeguarding referral to the local authority.

The home had a registered manager who had been in post since July 2016. 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.

Birchwood – Newbury is a care home with nursing that is registered to provide support to a total of 60 people across three floors. At the time of the inspection, we were advised that the ground floor had been closed, to allow staff to be deployed to the other two floors. A total of 46 people were being provided support and care at the service.

Staff knew how to keep people safe by reporting concerns immediately. Systems and processes were in place to recruit staff who were suitable to work in the service and to protect people against the risk of abuse. However, the service required using agency staff as there were a number of vacancies within the service. This ensured sufficient staff were deployed to keep people safe.

There was a rolling training programme in place for all staff. This ensured that when any training was due to expire, this was arranged and booked for staff to attend, keeping staff equipped with knowledge.

People had comprehensive care plans in place, that informed staff how they wanted to be kept safe. This required further evaluation in the form of risk assessments. We found that whilst the risks had been assessed for some people, there were no written guidelines in place to inform staff how people should be kept safe. For example, one person was at high risk of falls, this was identified, however no care plan was written up specific to this.

Records were not maintained accurately to illustrate that people were receiving the appropriate level of support and care in line with their care plan. For example we looked at records for people who required 2:1 support and found that the daily records did not illustrate that the appropriate level of staff were supporting. We also found that from the records we were unable to distinguish if male or female staff were helping people, even when this had specifically been highlighted in the care plan.