28 February 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Oak House Care Home is a residential care home that provides accommodation and nursing or personal care for up to 16 people, many of whom have physical disabilities and are living with dementia. At the time of this inspection, 15 people were living at the service.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
The risks associated with people’s care was not always undertaken in a safe way. This included the risk of trips and falls and choking. Accidents and incidents were not analysed for trends and themes to prevent further occurrence. The recruitment for staff was not robust. There was information missing around staff’s employment background and there was a lack of required references for the provider to consider the staff suitability for the role.
The provider and registered manager did not have a robust oversight of the care at the service. They had not identified the shortfalls that we had identified at the inspection. People and staff were complimentary about the registered manager and said they felt listened to. People told us they felt safe and that they received their medicines when needed.
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was Good (published 3 May 2019).
Why we inspected
The inspection was prompted in part by concerns we received relating to infection and prevention control practices and safe care and treatment.
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 that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.
We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements in relation to risks associated with people’s care, the recruitment of staff and the lack of robust quality assurance. Please see the Safe and Well Led sections of this full report. You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Oak House Care Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Enforcement
We will continue to discharge our regulatory enforcement functions required to keep people safe and to hold providers to account where it is necessary for us to do so.
For requirement actions of enforcement which we are able to publish at the time of the report being published. Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.
Follow up
We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.