About the service Clayton Manor is a residential care home providing personal and nursing care to 67 people at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to 75 people with different health and care needs. People are accommodated on different units across two floors in one building. One unit specialises in the care for people living with advanced dementia. This is the unit we visited during this focussed inspection.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
We found that some aspects of the safety of people’s care could be improved, although people and relatives we spoke with told us the service provided safe care. We found that some aspects of risk management needed to be made more robust. We made a recommendation regarding this.
Service governance, including ensuring robust monitoring, record-keeping and implementing of lessons learned, needed to be improved to underpin a consistently safe, quality service. We made a recommendation regarding this. Following a few changes in service leadership, a new manager had been appointed and became registered with the Care Quality Commission shortly after our visit. As they had only recently started the new registered manager was still getting to know people, relatives and staff; however, those we spoke with praised the unit staff and leadership.
Those we spoke with told us that generally there were enough staff to keep people safe. The service had introduced an additional shift, based on their learning from incidents. The service still relied on agency workers, although their use had reduced. Staff and relatives confirmed that where possible the same agency workers were used, which promoted consistency. We highlighted to the registered manager the need to check whether agency staff had also been trained to deliver safe care for people living with dementia.
Regular meetings took place to keep people, relatives and staff up-to-date and involved in the service. We received positive feedback from those we spoke with about the service keeping them informed about their family members, as well as the service creating a homely, welcoming feel. Staff felt there was a positive team atmosphere.
People we spoke with felt safe living at Clayton Manor and in observations we saw people appeared relaxed around staff. One person said, “I am well looked after here, although I do not really need much looking after.” Relatives we spoke with praised the way in which staff kept their family members safe, particularly at times of distress. A relative told us, “I cannot sing their praises loudly enough, somehow they always find a way to get through.”
At our last inspection we found that 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. As this was a focussed inspection checking whether the service was safe and well-led, we did not revisit this particular aspect of care.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The rating for the service following the last comprehensive inspection was good (published 24 July 2019).
Why we inspected
We received concerns in relation to the safety of people’s care. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the Key Questions of Safe and Well-led only. Meetings and investigations were ongoing in relation to concerns raised and our inspection looked at the wider themes within the service.
We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other Key Questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those Key Questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.
The overall rating for the service has remained good, although there was a deterioration of the Key Question Well-led to requires improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the recommendations we have made within the Safe section, as well as improvement needs identified within the Well-led section of this full report.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Clayton Manor on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.