Beacon House

Updated 2 July 2019

The inspection:

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) 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 Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team:

The inspection team consisted of one adult social care inspector and an expert-by-experience. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. The expert by experience involved in this inspection had experience of caring for older adults and people living with a dementia.

Service and service type:

Beacon House is a residential care home. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

The home had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection:

The inspection was unannounced and took place on the 22 May 2019.

What we did:

Before the inspection we reviewed the information, we held about the home, including notifications we had received. Notifications are changes, events or incidents the provider is legally required to tell us about within required timescales. We also asked the provider to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). The PIR is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give us some key information about the home, what the home does well and improvements they plan to make. We used this information to plan the inspection.

We spoke with nine people living at the home, seven relatives, five members of staff, and the registered manager. We asked the local authority who commissions care services from the home for their views on the care and support provided.

To help us assess and understand how people's care needs were being met we reviewed six people’s care records. We also reviewed records relating to the running of the home. These included staff recruitment and training records, medicine records and records associated with the provider's quality assurance systems.

Updated 2 July 2019

About the service: Beacon House is a residential care home that provides accommodation and personal care for up to 34 older people some of whom may be living with dementia or have a physical frailty. At the time of our inspection, 25 people were living at the home.

People’s experience of using this service: People consistently told us they were happy and felt safe living at Beacon House. Relatives had confidence in the service and told us the home was well managed. One person said, “I’m very happy here and I feel looked after.”

People were treated with kindness and compassion and supported to express their views and make decisions about their care. People and their relatives felt comfortable raising complaints and were confident these would be listened to and acted on.

People were protected from potential abuse by staff who had received training and were confident in raising concerns. There was a thorough recruitment process in place that checked potential staff were safe to work with people who may be vulnerable.

Risks had been appropriately assessed and staff had been provided with information on how to support people safely.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems supported this practice.

People received personalised care from staff who knew them well and understood how to meet their needs. Care plans contained information about individual preferences and what was important to people such as interests and activities.

People’s medicines were managed, stored and administered safely and appropriately by staff who had been trained and assessed as competent to do so.

People's privacy and dignity was respected, their independence promoted, had access to healthcare professionals when required and were supported to maintain a balanced healthy diet.

People were supported by staff who had completed a range of training to meet their needs. Staff told us they felt well supported by the home’s management team.

The registered manager continued to carry out a regular programme of audits to assess the safety and quality of the service. The home was clean, well maintained and people were protected from the risk and/or spread of infection as staff had access to personal protective equipment (PPE).

Rating at last inspection: The home was previously rated as ‘Good.’ The report was published on the 30 November 2016.

Why we inspected: This inspection was scheduled based on the previous rating.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor the home through the information we receive until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk