Church Farm Care Home

The learning culture and safe systems and pathways had improved since we last inspected the service. The service safeguarding processes were effective, however we identified concerns around staff’s knowledge of Deprivation of liberty safeguards and we were not assured that processes were not effective to manage risks of people’s needs within the service. There were some concerns in the environments risk assessments and vacant rooms were not locked consistently and could pose a risk to people with dementia. There were sufficient staff to meet the needs of people within the service however we were concerned that staff did not always have adequate training to meet individual specific health needs. We addressed this with the service, and they are working on improving this. The environment was visibly clean although we were not assured there were robust Infection Prevention Control measures in place to identify concerns. We noted there were concerns over the medication competencies carried out on staff however these were resolved throughout our assessment and no additional concerns were identified over the management of medications.

Throughout our assessment we identified concerns of the effectiveness of the service, we were not assured needs were assessed accurately due to concerns identified within peoples care records. We found care needs were not always being followed as advised and escalation processes were not clearly recorded within care records. The service worked well with partners to support the needs of people within the environment and meals being provided had good nutritional value. There were snacks provided throughout the environment. We identified gaps in some care records around their consent to care and treatment.

The staff and leaders showed kindness, compassion and dignity to people in the service and this was echoed through speaking to people, their relatives and other healthcare professionals that came into the environment. People were treated as individuals and their independence was encouraged and people felt they were given choice and were in control of their own care. Staff were confident to respond to peoples immediate care needs and there was a good workforce throughout the service and staff morale had increased since a change in management.

We found through the assessment that the service was very responsive to areas we noted required improvement. People’s care was delivered in a person-centred way, The staff worked well with health care professionals and were responsive in putting referrals through appropriately. Information met the Accessible information standards (AIS) and people felt listened too. People who were at more risk of facing inequality, the service supported to ensure they still received the care and support as needed.

We noted the service had addressed and actioned a lot of the concerns following our previous assessment. However, we were not assured over the level of oversight the provider had, due to additional concerns we had identified throughout our assessment that they were not aware of. We felt this was due to a lack of robust processes and the processes that were in place, were not embedded within the environment. However, staff expressed there was a clear shared direction and culture and felt very supported by the registered manager and deputy manager.