21 December 2021
During a routine inspection
Bramble Lodge Care Home is a residential care home providing personal and nursing care to 51 people aged 65 and over at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to 63 people. The home is split onto separate floors, each of which has communal lounges and dining spaces. There are also large accessible outdoor spaces.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Overall medicines were managed well, however we have made a recommendation about the management of some medicines.
Systems were in place to protect people from abuse. People’s risks had been assessed and reviewed regularly. There were enough safely recruited staff to meet people's needs. Infection control measures were in place to keep people protected.
Staff were knowledgeable about people’s healthcare needs and appropriate monitoring was in place using nationally recognised tools. The home worked in partnership with healthcare professionals and ensured timely referrals when appropriate.
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.
Staff were kind and caring and respectful of people’s privacy, dignity and independence. Staff knew people’s needs well and what was important to them. People and relatives were involved in, and supported to understand, decisions about their care.
Care was personalised and considered people’s personal preferences. There was a range of different activities for people living there to get involved in and people were supported to have contact with friends and relatives.
There was a positive culture within the home and staff were passionate about providing high quality care. People had opportunities to give feed back and felt listened to. There was a governance system in place that monitored the quality of the service and the provider had plans in place to drive forward improvements.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
This service was registered with us on 4 November 2019 and this is the first comprehensive inspection. We completed an infection prevention and control (IPC) inspection which was not rated, this report was published on [23 May 2021] and we issued a warning notice. We inspected the service again in relation to IPC and found the provider had met the warning notice, again we did not provide a rating and published the report [4 September 2021]. The last rating for the service under the previous provider was requires improvement published on [1 May 2019].
Why we inspected
This was a planned inspection based on the provider not having received a comprehensive inspection since registration. It was also prompted in due to concerns received about staffing levels and the care support people received.
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.
We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Bramble Lodge Care Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.