16 August 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People and their relatives felt the service was safe, and people were cared for by staff who understood safeguarding procedures. There were enough staff working within the service to keep people safe.
Risks present within people’s lives had been assessed and reviewed. Staff working with people understood how to manage risk. Medicines were administered by trained staff, in a safe manner.
Environmental risk was assessed, and the premises were clean and well maintained. Staff followed infection prevention control measures to ensure the risk of infection was managed. Lessons were learned through analysis of any incidents or accidents.
There was a registered manager in place and a management team who supported their staff. Staff and people all felt the service was well run.
Audits and checks were in place to ensure prompt action was taken when any problems were found. Staff and people were able to feedback and have their voices heard.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 18 May 2019).
Why we inspected
We undertook this inspection as part of a random selection of services which have had a recent Direct Monitoring Approach (DMA) assessment, where no further action was needed to seek assurance about this decision and to identify learning about the DMA process.
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 undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.
For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.
The overall rating for the service has changed from Requires Improvement to Good based on the findings of this inspection.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for South Lodge Care Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.