Ashley Court Care Limited

Since our last assessment, the provider had not taken enough action needed to make improvements. The provider remained in breach of the legal regulations relating to people’s safe care and treatment, staffing, dignity and respect, person centred care, need for consent and governance.

People did not always receive safe care and treatment. We identified ongoing concerns relating to the management of seizures and unresponsive episodes, falls management, pressure area care, catheter care, hydration monitoring, modified diets, medicines management and infection prevention and control. Environmental risks and maintenance concerns were also identified throughout the service.

Whilst the provider took action to address some concerns during the assessment, a number of these issues had not been identified through the provider's own systems and processes prior to our inspection. This did not provide assurance that risks to people were consistently identified and managed in a timely way.

People's needs were not always met in a person-centred way. Communication needs were not consistently reflected within care records and people were not always offered meaningful choice at mealtimes. Some improvements had been made to the environment; however, these were not always meaningful or dementia-friendly and did not consistently support people to maintain independence and orientation within the service.

The provider could not always demonstrate people had been supported to make informed decisions about their care and treatment in line with the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

This increased the risk of people’s rights and choices not being respected.

Concerns remained regarding staff competency, a high usage of agency staff and delays in people receiving support.

Governance and oversight systems were not effective. We also found that a number of concerns identified during the first site visit remained evident during the second visit, despite assurances provided by the provider.

However, staff spoke positively about the service and staff were safely recruited.

This service remains in special measures. The purpose of special measures is to ensure that services providing inadequate care make significant improvements. Special measures provide a framework within which we user our enforcement powers in response to inadequate care and provide a timeframe within which providers must improve the quality of the care they provide.

In instances where CQC has begun a process of regulatory action, we may publish this information on our website after any representations and/or appeals have been concluded, if the action has been taken forward.