Highfield House

The following is CQC's published account of its assessment, published 4 November 2024. References to “we” mean CQC. It describes findings at that time.

This assessment took place between 2nd and 8th October 2024. We undertook this assessment because we received concerns in relation to staffing and incident management. Highfield House is a residential care home providing personal and nursing care to up to 45 people. The service provides support to people with complex neurological and respiratory conditions. At the time of our inspection there were 39 people living at the care home. We assessed 5 quality statements from the safe and well-led key questions. The scores for these areas have been combined with scores based on the key question ratings from the last assessment. People continued to receive safe care and treatment. The provider reviewed their practices in response to any incidents that occurred at the service. This meant lessons were learnt when things had gone wrong and appropriate action was taken to minimise similar incidents reoccurring. The service was adequately staffed by competent nursing and health care staff whose suitability and fitness to work at this care home had been thoroughly assessed. There had been a large recruitment drive since our last assessment with many new permanent nursing and health care workers employed. This had reduced the services over-reliance on temporary agency staff. Staff had the right levels of training and support to deliver safe and effective care to people living at the care home. The induction processes for all new staff had been improved, including the delivery of more clinical training. Staff knew how to use the required medical equipment safely, this included receiving tailored training on how to meet each person's specific clinical health and personal care needs. The providers governance systems were operated effectively to continually assess, monitor and manage the quality and safety of the care and treatment people living in the care home received. This enabled the managers and staff to continuously learn lessons and improve their working practices.