23 May 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Merstone House is a residential care home providing personal care to up to eight people. The service provides support to older people and younger adults with who have mental health diagnoses. At the time of our inspection there were eight people using the service.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People were supported safely by staff who knew them well. People were protected from the risk of abuse by staff who had received training about safeguarding and who understood how to report any concerns. Infection control procedures and measures were in place to protect the people from risks associated with COVID-19.
Staff had received medicine training and their competence was assessed to ensure they were following safe medicine practices. Staff were recruited safely, and pre-employment checks were completed to make sure they were of good character.
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.
The registered manager was accessible and approachable. The culture of the service was open and inclusive. People and staff felt supported by the leadership within the service. Quality monitoring and governance was effective, and people's views were used to make changes and improvements.
For more information, please read the detailed findings section of this report. If you are reading this as a separate summary, the full report can be found on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection:
The last rating for this service was good (published 14 March 2019).
Why we inspected
We undertook this inspection as part of a random selection of services rated Good and Outstanding. We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.
For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.
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.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.