Crofton Court

Updated 16 March 2023

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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

This inspection was carried out by 1 inspector and 1 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.

Service and service type

Crofton Court is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing and/or personal care as a single package under one contractual agreement dependent on their registration with us. Crofton Court is a care home without nursing care. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was unannounced.

What we did before inspection

Before the inspection we reviewed the information we had received about the home since the last inspection. We reviewed CQC notifications. Notifications describe events that happen in the service that the provider is legally required to tell us about.

We sought feedback from the local authority safeguarding and commissioning teams, the local fire authority, infection control teams and Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England.

The provider completed a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 9 people receiving care and support and 12 relatives. We contacted the staff team by email and spoke with staff at the service, including care, domestic, maintenance, kitchen and administration staff. We spoke with two regional managers and the registered manager.

We reviewed at a range of records. This included 5 people’s care files, multiple medication records, 4 staff files in relation to their recruitment and a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures.

We contacted the local medicines optimisation, dietitian and district nurse teams, a local GP, behavioural support teams and the local authority care management and social work teams.

Updated 16 March 2023

About the service

Crofton Court is a care home providing accommodation and personal care without nursing for up to 50 people. At the time of the inspection, 38 people were living at the home.

People's experience of using this service and what we found

People and their relatives told us they felt the service was safe. Accidents and incidents were recorded and reported correctly, and lessons were learnt to minimise reoccurrence.

Monitoring of the building and safety checks were completed, including fire safety measures. We have made a recommendation about timings of fire drills.

Staff were described by people and their relatives as kind, very caring and friendly. One relative said, “All of these carers have a great sense of humour mixed with an incredible sense of caring for everyone. I really don’t know how they do their job, day after day.”

Medicines were managed safely.

Enough staff were employed to meet people’s needs and a safe recruitment system was in place.

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 home supported this practice.

Robust monitoring processes were in place to help ensure a good standard of service. Quality assurance systems identified areas for further development and actions were implemented.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 6 June 2022).

The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

At our last inspection we recommended that staff deployment be kept under review. At this inspection we found recommendations had been addressed.

Why we inspected

We carried out an unannounced focused inspection of this service on 20 April 2022. Breaches of legal requirements were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve medicines management.

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions safe and well-led which contain those requirements. 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 to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

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.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Crofton Court 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.