24 November 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
About the service
Searsons Way is a residential care home which was providing personal care to 3 people at the time of our inspection. All people living at the service were autistic or had learning disabilities. The service can support up to 4 people in one adapted building over two floors.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Right Support
People were supported to live safely. Medicines were administered to people by staff who had been trained and competency assessed. This was an improvement from our last inspection. Evidence indicated people were supported by the right amount of staff. We made a recommendation about this at our previous inspection. Staff were recruited safely. People were supported through systems to safeguard them from abuse, this included financial abuse. We had made a recommendation about this previously. People were kept safe through good infection prevention and control practice. People were supported by other agencies which the provider assisted them to do.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
Right Care
Risks to people were assessed and monitored. The provider completed health and safety checks to ensure where people lived was safe. Care provided was person-centred and the provider aimed to meet people’s communication needs. The provider had quality assurance measures to monitor whether people got the right care.
Right culture
Improvements had been made at the service since our last inspection. However, relatives expressed concerns about whether there was open and positive culture at the service. Relatives told us they felt improvements could be made to how the service was managed, in particular how the service had work to do in becoming more transparent with their decision making and communications. Evidence showed the provider had recorded concerns and attempted to resolve issues and attempted to communicate with relatives. The provider had not re-registered the service along with its sister service next door, which was something they told us they would do at the last inspection.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection (and update)
The last rating for this service was requires improvement published (05 November 2020) and there were multiple breaches of regulation. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.
At our last inspection we recommended that the provider follow best practice guidance on maintaining safe and suitable staffing levels, we recommended the provider follow best practice guidance on developing a culture of keeping people safe from abuse and we also recommended the provider follow best practice guidance on seeking advice and guidance from CQC about re-registering the service as it was not meeting the requirements of CQC ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance for residential services for people living with learning disabilities and or autism . At this inspection we found improvements made around all three recommendations, but the service had not re-registered the service or sought guidance from CQC in this regard.
Why we inspected
We undertook this inspection to assess that the service is applying the principles of Right support right care right culture and to follow up on action we told the provider to take at the last inspection.
We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.