Copper Beeches

This is the first rating for this newly registered service.

People received care from staff who were kind, compassionate and treated them with dignity and respect. We observed positive interactions where staff reassured people, explained care clearly and promoted choice and independence. Care plans were detailed and personalised, and staff demonstrated a good understanding of people’s individual needs and preferences.

Staff were recruited safely. Staffing levels were sufficient to meet people’s needs and there was a programme of training to support staff skills. Staff understood safeguarding processes and how to report concerns.

The service was clean and infection prevention and control practices were mostly effective. However, improvements were required in some areas. Medicines were not always well managed. There had been a number of medicine stock discrepancies. Although nursing staff took action to ensure people were not harmed there had not always been effective management oversight in this area to prevent repeat occurrences. Some governance processes had only recently begun such as staff supervisions and regular clinical governance meetings. These practices needed embedding to help strengthen governance at the service. Auditing systems were not consistently effective at driving improvement in the service. Where audits had identified areas of practice that were not fully compliant this had not always led to action that addressed issues. We found some previously identified areas of practice had come up again at the next audit as still not compliant.

There was a refurbishment plan in place for the service and people’s rooms had recently been decorated. However, further work was needed and had been planned to improve the communal areas of the service. The environment was not always well managed, with inappropriate use of space and gaps in safety checks of people’s equipment. Part of the refurbishment plans were to build storage on the grounds of the service in the future.