St Martin's Nursing Home

Updated 2 May 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 two adult social care inspectors and a nursing specialist advisor.

Service and service type: St Martin’s Nursing Home is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at on this inspection.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that 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: This inspection was unannounced.

What we did: We reviewed all information we had received about the service since the last inspection. This included, previous inspection reports, the provider information return and details of incidents that the provider had notified us about.

During the inspection we spoke with three people and four relatives to ask about their experience of the care provided. We observed how staff provided care throughout the inspection including during the mid-day meal. We also spoke with six staff and the registered manager. Following the inspection, we communicated with two health care professionals about the service’s performance.

We reviewed a range of records. This included six people's care records and a selection of medicine records. We also looked at four staff files around staff recruitment. Various records in relation to training and supervision of staff, records relating to the management of the service and the service’s policies and procedures.

Updated 2 May 2019

About the service: St Martin’s Nursing Home is registered to provide nursing care and was supporting 23 people on the day of our inspection.

People’s experience of using this service:

People were relaxed and comfortable at St Martin’s Nursing Home and were complimentary of the care provided. There were enough attentive staff on duty to meet people’s needs and they responded promptly to people’s requests for support.

Staff understood their role in protecting people from all forms of abuse or discrimination. Risks were managed appropriately and care records included sufficient guidance for staff to enable them to ensure people’s safety.

Staff were recruited safely and had the skills necessary to meet people needs. Training was regularly updated and care staff were provided with regular supervision. We have made a recommendation in relation to the supervision arrangements for nursing staff.

Care plans were informative and included information about people’s backgrounds to help staff understand their individual needs. Although there was a detailed activities programme and the service employed three, part time, activities coordinators there was a lack of things for people to do during our inspection. We discussed this issue with the registered manager who told us that in future arrangements would be made to provide alternate activities when activity coordinators were on leave.

The service was well-led. The well-established staff team were motivated and told us the service managers were supportive and approachable. There were appropriate systems in place to monitor the service performance and people feedback was valued and acted upon.

At our previous inspection the service was rated Good. (Report published 2 November 2016)

Why we inspected: This inspection was part of our scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people receive safe, compassionate, high quality care. Further inspections will be planned based on the rating. If we receive any concerns we may bring our inspection forward.

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