This inspection took place on 19 February 2016 and was unannounced. The provider of The Willows is registered to provide accommodation and personal care for up to 16 older people. At the time of this inspection 14 people lived at the home.

The provider is required to have a registered manager in post. The former registered manager deregistered with us in November 2015. The provider had taken action and a new manager was appointed in January 2016 and is currently in the process of submitting an application to be registered with us. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People were kept safe from harm or potential abuse by staff who had been trained and knew how to recognise and report concerns. Information about the risks to people’s safety were communicated and equipment was in place to meet their needs safely.

Staff were recruited in a safe way and who had received induction and training. Additional training was needed and had been planned to ensure they met people's needs and kept them safe. Staff felt they were well supported in their roles.

The health and welfare needs of people were met because the manager assessed the numbers of staff with the relevant skills and experience who needed to be on duty. This included staff with the knowledge so people’s care and support their needs in the least restrictive way. The manager had plans to review the applications which had been sent to the local authority where people’s freedom was potentially restricted to make sure these continued to hold up to date information.

People were supported to access healthcare services to maintain and promote their health and well-being. People were also helped to take their medicines by staff who knew how to manage these in line with safe principles of practice in order to meet people’s health needs.

People were provided with appropriate food and drink to meet their health needs. People were happy with the food they were provided with and staff helped people to make their own choices so people’s personal preferences could be met.

Staff were caring and respectful towards people with consideration for people’s individual needs when chatting with people. We saw staff were attentive, polite and sought consent before providing care and support so people were included in their chosen lifestyles as much as possible.

The manager told us further work was in hand to improve the regularity of fun and interesting things for people to do which were personalised to meet their individual recreational interests. This included exploring people’s life histories with them to make sure care and support was personalised.

People knew how to make a complaint and felt able to speak with staff or the manager about any issues they wanted to raise. People were involved in providing their views about their care directly to the manager and staff. Meetings had been held with people in the past but had not happened since the manager came into post. The manager was committed to gaining people’s views and visitors to the home so would be arranging meetings as one way to gain people’s suggestions.

Since the new manager had been in post they had and were continuing to introduce a range of checks to make sure the quality of the services people received were of a good standard. From carrying out these checks the manager was working towards making key improvements such as strengthening staff practices. We saw the manager had identified and was taking action to drive through improvements which had had a positive impact upon reducing risks of people becoming malnourished by strengthening their staff teams monitoring practices.