Eaton Lodge Nursing Home

The inspection was planned as we received concerns regarding the management of the service and staff recruitment. During this assessment, we looked at the key questions of safe, caring and well-led. We found 2 breaches of the regulations in relation to safe care and treatment and good governance. The service was previously rated good but has now changed to required improvement.

Eaton Lodge Nursing Home provides nursing care to up to 24 service users. At the time of the inspection there were 21 people living at the service and one person who was in hospital. The service is arranged over 3 floors. Most people living at the service were older people living with dementia.

There were areas where people’s care needed improvement. For example, we found some concerns relating to how people were supported with the risk of becoming dehydrated and the risk of constipation. There were also areas where the safety of medicines management needed to be improved. For example, when supporting people with pain patches which needed to be rotated to protect people’s skin from the risk of irritation. However, staff knew people well and did understand people’s health needs.

We identified a number of environmental concerns at the service which needed to be addressed. For example, one fire exit had been blocked, and another had a broken alarm.

We discussed our concerns with the provider and management of the service and action was taken to address concerns either during the inspection or immediately afterwards.

Governance needed to be improved to ensure concerns were identified and addressed prior to any inspection to ensure care and treatment remained safe.

However, when incidents and accidents occurred staff had taken action to address risks and reduce the likelihood of the event from re-occurring. People were protected from the risk of abuse and staff knew how to identify and report concerns.

There were enough staff to support people. Staff, in the main, had the training they needed to support people. However, staff manual handling competency had not been checked. We raised this with the registered manager, and this was addressed immediately after the inspection to ensure staff practice was safe. Other areas of staff competency were checked including medicine administration. Staff were recruited safely, and appropriate checks had been undertaken for staff working with vulnerable adults.

People’s medicines were stored safely, and stocks were managed to ensure there were medicines in stock and stock matched records. Medicines were also disposed of safely when this was needed.

The service was clean and free from any unpleasant odours. Staff had undertaken training in areas such as infection prevention and control and COVID-19 so they knew what to do to minimise the risk of any infection spreading.

Staff worked in partnership with other service to provide joined up support to people. The registered manager and deputy manager worked together to provide oversight of staff practice and there was a positive culture at the service. Staff told us they were happy in their role and felt well supported.