Bowes House

Updated 24 April 2024

This assessment took place from 7 May to 24 May 2024. We carried out an onsite visit on 7 May 2024. This assessment was planned in response to concerns raised about the management of medicines and care delivery at the service. We did not identify any significant issues during this assessment and the service remains rated Good. Incidents and accidents were reported, and appropriate actions were taken. Safeguarding concerns were raised as required. Staff knew how to identify and raise concerns. When things went wrong lessons were learnt. Staff knew how to support people with their health conditions. There was enough staff to support people to remain safe. Staff had the skills and knowledge they needed to provide people with safe care. Staff had undertaken equality and diversity training and told us diversity was valued at the service. Medicines were administered as prescribed and managed safely, however we identified some areas of practice that needed improvement in relation to PRN (as required) medicines, the support of staff and the culture of the service. This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. 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. At the time of our onsite visit there was a manager registered with the CQC. However, the registered manager was no longer in post. Day to day running of the service was carried out by the registered manager of another service run by the provider, with support from the regional management team. The previous management arrangements at the service had contributed to the issues in respect to the support of staff and culture of the service. The new management arrangements were creating a progressive environment, with staff feeling more supported and morale improving.

Updated 24 April 2024

People using the service and their relatives were happy with the service. They felt people were safe and well supported by staff. Their health and social needs were monitored and met. They were able to participate in a range of social activities and received personalised care and support. People told us they felt safe and well cared for and they were able to speak up if they had concerns. One person told us, “I feel very safe and secure, staff check on you all the time and we are quite happy.” People and relatives said that the staff are kind and caring, and that staff know how to support them. One person told us, “Very kind and caring staff, we all jog along quite well with them all.” A relative added, “Yes, [my relative] is safe. He gets a lot of interaction from the staff, and he looks okay.” The onsite visit was undertaken by 2 inspectors, a member of the CQC medicines team and an 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. During our visit we spoke with 14 people who used the service and 3 relatives. We carried out observations of care and support. Our observations included the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us. We spoke with staff on duty and looked at a range of records, the environment and how medicines were managed. We also reviewed records the provider sent to us after the onsite visit. Following our onsite visit we spoke with a further 5 relatives of people using the service.