Princess Lodge Care Centre

Updated 3 October 2024

Date of assessment: 9 December 2024 to 17 January 2025. We assessed the service due to concerns received about staff not providing appropriate care and support to people, staff not responding to people’s needs, and people not having equipment they needed. We assessed 19 quality statements across the safe, effective, caring and well-led domains. Staff were recruited safely and completed training relevant to their role. Staff appeared knowledgeable about how to support people and showed kindness and compassion to people they supported. There were appropriate safeguarding processes in place to ensure people were protected from abuse. Staff told us activities took place regularly within the service and told us people were supported to access communal areas if they wanted. Staff provided consistently positive feedback about the management team, and felt management were supportive, approachable and responsive. Leaders were knowledgeable about their regulatory responsibilities and promoted an open culture where staff were encouraged to raise any concerns. Audits took place regularly and any actions resulting from these were addressed. However, during our first on-site visit, we identified many health, safety and infection prevention and control concerns. We raised these with the manager, who took action to address these in a timely way and put measures in place to ensure better oversight of this in the future. Additionally, there was a lack of oversight around the safe administration of medicines. We found the provider’s audits had not always been effective in identifying some of the above concerns. However, the manager told us they had since improved their governance systems, and we observed improvements were made to the premises while this assessment was ongoing. Despite addressing the immediate concerns, we found breaches of legal regulations relating to the premises and equipment and governance. We have asked the provider for an action plan to address these issues.

Updated 3 October 2024

People told us they felt safe living at the service because there was “help available if they needed it.” People knew what action to take if they had any concerns. Relatives also felt people were safe living at the service. People and their relatives felt medicines were managed safely, and felt the service was clean. Relatives felt staff had the training to meet people’s needs effectively and people told us staff knew how to meet their needs. People told us staff asked for their consent before supporting them. Relatives were positive about the service, and examples were provided about people achieving good outcomes and person-centred care. Relatives were positive about the way the service was managed, and felt leaders were accessible and communicative. We received mixed feedback from people and their relatives about staffing levels. One person told us, “I use my buzzer and staff do come along, not always quickly. It is very difficult with staff at peak times because there aren’t enough of them, especially mealtimes.” We found some evidence to support the concerns received about staff not providing the appropriate care and support to people, for example, one relative told us staff did not support their family member with exercises outlined by a physiotherapist. The manager explained the action they have taken to address this and told us improvements have been made. Other relatives we spoke with gave positive examples of how the service supported their family member to achieve good outcomes.