THE regulator of health and social care in England has declared two care homes in the Okehampton area as 'good' in its latest series of reports.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) published reports on the quality of care provided by 55 adult social care services in the South of England. Among those to receive the 'good' rating are Kent House in Okehampton and Halwill Manor Nursing Home.

Under CQC's new programme of inspections, all of England's adult social care services regulated by CQC are being given a rating according to whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led.

Adrian Hughes, CQC's deputy chief inspector for adult social care, said: 'People are entitled to services which provide safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care. If that is what we find on inspection, we give the service a rating of "good", or "outstanding". It is positive to see the increase in services rated as outstanding overall, this is important to people who use the services and their relatives.

'We are pleased to join the providers managers and staff of the services celebrating the recognition of good quality and compassionate care services. Conversely, if we find that a service requires improvement, we will expect them to provide us with a full plan setting out how they will address the issue.' 

Kent House is a care home providing personal care and accommodation to a maximum of 27 older people who may be living with dementia or have a physical disability. At the time of its inspection there were 23 people using the service. People's health care needs are met through the community health care services, such as district nursing.

The home was rated as good in the safety, caring, responsive and well-led categories and requiring improvement in the effectiveness category. In its summary of the Kent House report, the CQC said the home 'was well-led by a registered manager who identified where improvement was required, ensured staff were made aware and followed through any issues. The provider organisation supported the registered manager and reviewed the service provided on a regular basis. Staff felt very well supported'.

One area Kent House was told it could improve in was the promotion of independence for people living with dementia.

Registered manager of Kent House Julie Smith said: 'We are all very pleased with the result, especially bearing in mind the new standards of inspections. It all went very well. The overall comments were great and the inspector told us this was a lovely, friendly, homely atmosphere and to keep up what we are doing. So that's very reassuring.'

Halwill Manor Nursing Home provides personal and nursing care to a maximum of 25 people, the majority of whom live with dementia. The nursing home was rated as good in the caring, responsive, well-led and effectiveness categories, with the safety category requiring improvement.

In its summary the CQC said: 'People, their families and health care professionals reported staff to be kind, friendly and caring.

'Staff understood how to engage with people as individuals and in a person centred way. People's dignity and privacy were promoted.'

Richard McSpadden, a partner at Halwill Manor, said: 'This CQC inspection was one of the most thorough we have ever had here with the CQC using a new framework. We are all very pleased with the result and the good rating is due to the hard work and dedication of our entire staffing team here.'