TAVISTOCK’S Abbotsfield Hall Nursing Home has been given the rating of ‘good’ by the regulator of health and social care in England in its latest series of reports.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) published reports on the quality of care provided by 51 adult social care services in the south of England. Abbotsfield Hall is one of 31 homes and agencies to received the ‘good’ rating.

Abbotsfield Hall provides accommodation and nursing care to a maximum of 28 people who are frail elderly. There were 25 people using the service at the time of the inspection in August.

The home was rated as good in the effectiveness, caring, responsive and well-led categories and requiring improvement in the safety category. In its summary of Abbotsfield, the CQC said that staff ‘were kind, respectful, caring and friendly. When staff engaged with people they took their time, gave people information, choice and encouragement. Privacy and dignity were upheld.’

The needs of residents ‘were assessed and planned with their involvement. The standard of personal, nursing and end of life care was high’ and that people ‘were fully involved in decisions about their care and the staff understood legal requirements to make sure people’s rights were protected, such as ensuring they were able to consent to care and treatment.’

One area Abbotsfield was told it could improve was in the safety category. Inspectors said that ‘most aspects’ of the service were safe but that ‘medicines management was not always robust but people received their prescribed medicines when they were needed’. The report also pointed out staffing recruitment, numbers and training were robust enough to ensure people got the care they needed in a timely manner.

Robert Gaffney, the home’s registered manager, said everyone at the home was very pleased with the report.

He said: ‘We were all very pleased to achieve a good rating in the latest Care Quality Commission inspection report and it was a real team effort. Our excellent staff, residents and visitors all helped and there was a real sense of everyone wanting us to do well.

‘We pride ourselves in creating a lively community that feels like home to anyone coming through our doors and over the years we’ve made many friends in Tavistock and the surrounding areas. I think being a small family run home is the secret and the fact we are lucky to work in such a beautiful historic building that gives out good vibes. Maybe next time, we’ll get an outstanding rating!’

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

Deborah Ivanova, CQC’s interim deputy chief inspector for adult social care, said: ‘People are entitled to services which provide safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care. We assess services against five key questions – Is the service caring? Is the service effective? Is the service safe? Is the service well led? Is the service responsive? – and rate each question and the service overall. Where we find a service meets our characteristics of good or outstanding then we will rate accordingly.’

Full reports on all 51 inspections are available at: http://www.cqc.org.uk