Support for Living Limited - 25/27 Haymill Close

Updated 6 December 2018

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This focused inspection of the key questions, ‘is the service safe?’ and ‘is the service well-led?’ took place on 6 November 2018 and was unannounced. One inspector undertook this inspection.

Prior to the inspection we looked at the action plan the provider had sent us that contained the measures they had said they would implement to address the concerns found at our previous inspection. We read previous inspection reports and we reviewed information we held about the service, this included notifications. A notification is information about important events that the provider is required to send us by law.

During our inspection, we looked at two people’s care records. This included their care plans, risk assessments and daily notes. We also did a partial tour of the premises and looked at three people’s medicines administration records. We spoke with one senior care staff, the registered manager, the deputy manager and the area manager who was visiting the service.

Following our inspection, we reviewed two staff recruitment records that were provided by Certitude head office.

Updated 6 December 2018

We undertook an unannounced focused inspection of Support for Living Limited - 25/27 Haymill Close on 6 November 2018.

This inspection was carried out to check that improvements to meet legal requirements after our comprehensive inspection on 10 and 12 April 2018 had been made. We inspected the service against two of the five key questions we ask about services: ‘is the service well-led?’ and ‘is the service safe?’. This is because the service was not meeting some legal requirements.

At our last inspection we found that two bathrooms were not maintained to a good standard of cleanliness. In addition, equipment was stored in an unsafe manner in the bathrooms. Therefore, we found a breach of the regulations with regard to premises and equipment. Following the last inspection, we asked the provider to complete an action plan to show what they would do to meet the regulation they were breaching. At this inspection we found that measures had been put in place to ensure that the bathrooms were maintained in a clean manner. Appropriate alternate arrangements had been made for the storage of equipment. The quality assurances systems in regard to monitoring the safety and quality of the premises had also been improved

No risks, concerns or significant improvement were identified in the remaining key questions through our ongoing monitoring or during our inspection activity so we did not inspect them. The ratings from the previous comprehensive inspection for these key questions were included in calculating the overall rating in this inspection

Support for Living Limited - 25/27 Haymill Close is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection. The care home accommodates six people with a learning disability, some of whom may have mental health needs, in one adapted building. The bedrooms and communal facilities are on the ground floor and there are several spacious lounges, dining rooms, two kitchens and bathroom facilities. There was an enclosed safe garden for people’s use. At the time of our inspection five people lived at the home.

The provider for Support for Living Limited - 25/27 Haymill Close is Support for Living Limited under the brand name of Certitude. In this inspection report we will refer to the provider as Certitude.

The care service has been developed in line with the values that underpin the Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. These values include choice, promotion of independence and inclusion. People with learning disabilities and autism using the service can live as ordinary a life as any citizen.” Registering the Right Support- CQC policy

There was a registered manager in post. 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.

The service was clean throughout and staff were observed to use personal protective equipment appropriately to avoid cross contamination.

The medicines procedure had been reviewed since our last inspection and we found that medicines were stored and administered in a safe manner by staff. Regular medicines audits were undertaken by the registered manager to check medicines were administered and recorded correctly.

The registered manager assessed staffing levels to ensure there were enough staff to meet people’s support needs. Certitude’s recruitment procedures had been followed to ensure the safe recruitment of staff.

Staff and the registered manager could tell us how they would recognise signs of abuse and knew how to report any concerns to the appropriate authorities. The registered manager undertook checks of incident and accident entries and daily records of people’s care to ensure all concerns were reported and investigated appropriately. When an error or near miss had occurred, measures were put in place and learning was shared with the staff team to avoid a reoccurrence.

The registered manager confirmed they were well supported by the area manager who visited the service at least once a week.

The registered manager and provider had completed audits to check the quality of the service provided to people and undertook appropriate actions to meet any shortfalls that were identified.

The registered manager had, with the provider’s fund-raising team worked with sponsors in the local community to raise funds to refurbish some areas of the home for the benefit of the people living there.

There were good lines of communication between staff and the management team. Daily handovers took place and there were regular team meetings to support staff to raise concerns and to share information. Staff were encouraged to reach their full potential and apply for senior positions with the provider.

Certitude had a strong ethos to promote opportunities for people with learning disabilities and mental health and worked in partnership with the local authority and other agencies to promote those opportunities.