Hunters Down Care Home

The service is a two storey premises located on the outskirts of Huntingdon. The service has communal lounges and dining areas on each floor and all bedrooms are single rooms with an en-suite shower room. The service is divided into five separate units called communities. People are cared for in a community according to their needs and levels of independence.

We found the following examples of good practice. Visitors, one or two people only, could visit their family member, friend by appointment only. This would be a socially distanced garden visit wearing a face mask. Gaps in-between each visit were 45 minutes. This was to allow staff to clean. On arrival into the building, a visitor must wait to enter, sign in and have their temperature checked. They also must answer a health declaration around COVID-19. The manager confirmed that people's relatives were communicated to re COVID-19 restrictions when booking their visit, by telephone, via email, letters and the locations Facebook page.

Staff were asked to socially distance when on their break and the manager and care manager told us that staff breaks were staggered to promote this. Additional smoking areas outside of the building had been set up to also reduce the risk of staff congregating together.

The manager and care manager told us that staff were cohorted into the different communities (units) each shift and remained there, to reduce the risk of cross contamination. This was particularly important in the dementia communities where people struggled to socially distance. This was because they may not have the mental capacity to maintain this information.

There was an infection control policy that included a decontamination section re COVID-19 and fluids spillage. There was also a stand-alone COVID-19 policy for staff to refer to for updated guidance. This included a COVID-19 care after death policy. For anyone on end of life a named relative /friend was at an agreed time able to sit with the person in the room whilst wearing full PPE.

Within the providers organisation a COVID-19 team had been set up to triage information and government guidance to support care home managers and staff as and when it changed.

The five questions we ask about services and what we found