About the service Devonshire Road is a care home providing accommodation and personal care to people with a learning disability and autistic people. This service is registered to provide care and support to five people in an ordinary house.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.
Based on our review of key questions Safe, Effective, Responsive and Well-led, the service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting some of the underpinning principles of Right support, right care, right culture. However, the registered manager was not familiar with the ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance. We have recommended that this guidance is implemented in the home.
Right support:
Staff supported people to follow their interests and to develop their independence. There was clear guidance for staff for how to support people with risks to their health, safety and wellbeing.
The service worked well with health and care professionals to meet people’s care needs. Staff supported people to access health services and advocated for them when they were unwell. Staff supported them with their personal care needs and their daily routines.
Staff were trained to meet the needs of the people they were supporting. Staff were aware of people’s individual personalities and preferences. People were encouraged and supported to be involved in meaningful activities.
Right care:
People, and their relatives, told us they received good care and support to lead a happy life. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible while still protecting their safety.
Staff had good knowledge of people’s individual communication needs and treated people with kindness and compassion.
Right culture:
Staff had formed close relationships with people they supported. People benefitted from a stable enthusiastic staff team who were committed to providing them with the best care.
The provider had a quality assurance system in place to check that the service was running safely and meeting people’s needs. The registered manager was committed to continuous learning. There was a family style culture in the service where staff enjoyed working and people felt secure and supported.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was good (published 14/04/2018).
Why we inspected
We inspected this service as it had been four years since the last inspection. This was a focused inspection looking at the key questions safe, effective, responsive and well-led. For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has remained good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Devonshire Road on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
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.
Recommendations
We have made three recommendations. These are to improve the management oversight of medicines, management of people’s hydration needs and to implement Right support, right care, right culture guidance.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.