This inspection took place on 9 January 2015 and was unannounced.
The Airedale Nursing Home is a care home registered to provide accommodation for people who require nursing or personal care. The home provides a service for up to 57 people who may have a range of care needs including dementia, physical disabilities and sensory impairments. There were 46 people using the service at the time of this inspection.
There was a registered manager in post. 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
We found that staff had been trained to recognise signs of potential abuse and keep people safe. People we spoke with confirmed they felt safe living in the home.
Processes were in place to manage identifiable risks within the service and ensure people did not have their freedom unnecessarily restricted.
There were sufficient numbers of staff who had the right skills and knowledge to meet people’s needs, and we saw that the provider carried out proper recruitment checks on new staff to make sure they were suitable to work at the home.
Systems were in place to ensure people’s medicines were managed in a safe way and that they got their medication when they needed it.
Staff had received training to carry out their roles, including support to achieve national health and social care qualifications.
We found that the service worked to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 key principles, which state that a person's capacity should always be assumed, and assessments of capacity must be undertaken where it is believed that a person cannot make decisions about their care and support.
People had enough to eat and drink. Assistance was provided to those who needed help with eating and drinking, in a discreet and helpful manner.
The home had developed positive working relationships with external healthcare professionals to ensure effective arrangements were in place to meet people’s healthcare needs.
Staff provided care and support in a caring and meaningful way and people were treated with kindness and compassion. People’s privacy and dignity was respected at all times.
We saw that people were given regular opportunities to express their views on the service they received and to be actively involved in making decisions about their care, treatment and support.
People’s social needs were provided for. We saw people actively participating in and enjoying activities that had been arranged on the day of the inspection.
A complaints procedure had been developed to let people know how to raise concerns about the service if they needed to.
Systems were also in place to monitor the quality of the service provided including satisfaction surveys, meetings and internal audits. We saw that action had been taken to address concerns that had been received and improvements that had been identified, as a result of internal audits and feedback from people using the service.