Archived: Pitchill House Nursing Home

Updated 24 March 2015

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection took place on 5 February 2015 and was unannounced.

The inspection team consisted of two inspectors and an expert-by-experience who is a person who has experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of service.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. We looked at information received from relatives and other agencies involved in people’s care. We also looked at the statutory notifications the manager had sent us. A statutory notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send to us by law. We also spoke with the local authority who provided us with information they held about this location. The local authority was aware of the concerns identified at the last inspection and had no additional information to share with us.

We spent time observing care in the lounge and communal areas. We also used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI) in the assisted living unit. SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.

Some people had limited communication so we spoke with four people who lived at Pitchill House to get their experiences of what it was like living at Pitchill House. We spoke with four visiting relatives, seven staff, this included nurses, care staff and domestic staff (these are defined in the report as staff). We spoke with the assistant operations director, registered manager and deputy manager. We looked at three people’s care records and other records including quality assurance checks, medicines, complaints and incident and accident records.

Updated 24 March 2015

This inspection took place on 5 February 2015 and was unannounced.

Pitchill House Nursing Home is a two storey residential and nursing home which provides care to older people including people who are living with dementia. Pitchill House is registered to provide care for 52 people. At the time of our inspection there were 41 people living at Pitchill House.

At our last inspection in August 2014 we identified breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010 in relation to the care and welfare of people, the number of suitably qualified and skilled staff and cleanliness and infection control. The provider sent us an action plan telling us the improvements they were going to make by December 2014. At this inspection we found improvements had been made.

There was a registered manager in post at the time of our inspection. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

All of the people we spoke with told us they felt well cared for and felt safe living at Pitchill House. People told us staff were respectful and kind towards them and staff were caring to people throughout our visit. Staff protected people’s privacy and dignity when they provided care to people and staff asked people for their consent, before any care was given.

Care plans contained accurate and relevant information for staff to help them provide the individual care and treatment people required. We saw examples of care records that reflected people’s wishes. We found people received care and support from staff who had the clinical knowledge and expertise to care for people.

People told us they received their medicines when required. Staff were trained to administer medicines and had been assessed as competent which meant people received their medicines from suitably trained, qualified and experienced staff.

Systems were in place to make sure people were not placed at risk of infections through cross contamination. Staff knew how to keep people safe and wore personal protective equipment when required.

Systems and processes were in place to recruit staff that were suitable to work in the service and to protect people against risks of abuse.

Staff understood they needed to respect people’s choice and decisions. Assessments had been made and reviewed to determine people’s capacity to make certain decisions. Where people did not have capacity, decisions had been taken in ‘their best interest’ with the involvement of family and appropriate health care professionals.

The provider was meeting their requirements set out in the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). At the time of this inspection, no applications had been authorised under DoLS for people’s freedoms and liberties to be restricted. The registered manager had recently contacted the local authority and referred to them a number of applications for people to ensure people’s freedoms were not restricted unnecessarily.

Regular checks were completed by the registered manager and provider to identify and improve the quality of service people received. These checks and audits helped ensure actions had been taken that led to improvements. People told us they were pleased with the service they received. If anyone had concerns, these were listened to and supported by managers or staff and responded to in a timely way.