Cheriton Care Home

On this page

• Overview
• Learning culture
• Safe systems, pathways and transitions
• Safeguarding
• Involving people to manage risks
• Safe environments
• Safe and effective staffing
• Infection prevention and control
• Medicines optimisation

Safe – this means we looked for evidence that people were protected from abuse and avoidable harm.

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has remained good. This meant people were safe and protected from avoidable harm.

This service scored 72 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service had a proactive and positive culture of safety, based on openness and honesty. They listened to concerns about safety and investigated and reported safety events. Lessons were learnt to continually identify and embed good practice.

Incidents were recorded, and discussed with people, their relatives and social care professionals to prevent reoccurrence.

Staff told us the actions they took in real life recent events which included reflection.

Accidents, incidents and events were recorded on the provider’s electronic governance systems. The registered manager was informed of each incident and undertook regular reviews to identify trends. In addition to this, learning was shared across the provider’s locations through managers meetings and reviews of the governance system at provider level.

The service worked with people and healthcare partners to establish and maintain safe systems of care, in which safety was managed or monitored. They made sure there was continuity of care, including when people moved between different services.

People felt confident their needs would be met by staff, and information would be shared to promote joined up care.

A social care professional stated us, “The staff member was very friendly and extremely knowledgeable about the resident which was pleasing to see.”

A person living at Cheriton Care Home told us, “I don’t mind telling the registered manager what’s what, we meet with my social worker, and I can tell them both what I need.”

The service worked with people and healthcare partners to understand what being safe meant to them and the best way to achieve that. Staff concentrated on improving people’s lives while protecting their right to live in safety, free from bullying, harassment, abuse, discrimination, avoidable harm and neglect.

Staff received safeguarding training and confidently told us how they would raise concerns, both within the home and externally. Staff were confident the registered manager would take any concerns seriously and act. Staff members said, “The office door is always open,” and, “We don't feel any fear in being able to contact management to raise concerns and we do when we need to.”

We checked whether the service was working within the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, whether appropriate legal authorisations were in place when needed to deprive a person of their liberty, and whether any conditions relating to those authorisations were being met.

The registered manager had oversight of these applications, authorisations, and conditions. This meant people’s rights were fully respected.

The service worked with people to understand and manage risks by thinking holistically.

They provided care to meet people’s needs that was safe, supportive and enabled people to do the things that mattered to them. A person living at the home told us, “I feel safe, and I am listened to.”

The management team told us work was underway to improve care plans to include more detail for staff to help promote people remaining independent and achieving goals.

We were shown evidence of an action plan created by the provider identifying the timeframe to complete this.

The service did not always detect and control potential risks in the care environment. They did not always make sure equipment, facilities and technology supported the delivery of safe care.

The provider had identified the systems in place to ensure water quality was monitored to reduce the risk of water-borne bacteria, like legionella, were not robust. Not all required works following a risk assessment had been completed. Following our site visit the provider responded to us detailing action they would take and by when to ensure all remedial works were concluded.

We observed the provider respond to concerns identified relating to outstanding remedial works. However, we note other environmental checks and maintenance were completed. We saw there had been regular checks to ensure the home was safe in the event of a fire.

The registered manager assured inspectors further training had been arranged for staff to ensure the provider’s policy relating to safe environment would be embedded to ensure of oversight. Emergency plans were in place detailing arrangements to keep people safe in the event the home needed to be evacuated.

The service made sure there were enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff, who received effective support, supervision and development. They worked together well to provide safe care that met people’s individual needs.

Staff comments included, “My favourite thing about the home is the atmosphere. We all come together.” And “Yes, there is a good training programme here for staff.”

We saw there were enough staff to provide support to people safely.

Staff were deployed effectively around the building to provide timely support to people, similar observations have been shared with us from visiting professionals, “When walking through the home staff are visible, either supporting the residents in the communal areas or within the bedrooms.”

The service assessed and managed the risk of infection.

People told us Cheriton Care Home is “clean and free from clutter.”

Staff detected and controlled the risk of infection spreading and shared concerns with appropriate agencies promptly. During our onsite activity, we observed the environment to be clean and free of unpleasant odours.

Throughout the day we saw cleaning tasks were completed and documented by staff, for example in the kitchen all cleaning records were available in the ‘Safer Food, Better Business’ file.

The service made sure that medicines and treatments were safe and met people’s needs, capacities and preferences.

They involved people in planning, including when changes happened.

People told us how they like to take their medicines was known to staff, and the staff we spoke to reported they felt well supported by the provider’s policy and training, so they were confident to administer people’s medicines.