Ewart House

Ewart House is an extra care housing service providing personal care to people. Ewart House is a purpose built block of flats containing 47 flats. The service provides support to older people to remain independent and live in their own flat within their community. A separate housing association is responsible for the running and maintenance of the building. The provision of personal care and the housing association are managed separately.

At the time of inspection, the service was providing personal care to 30 people.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided.

People's experience of using this service and what we found

Appropriate risk assessments were not always in place and some lacked detail. This could result in people receiving unsafe care. Improvements were needed in relation to risk assessments and we found a breach of regulation.

Recruitment checks were carried out prior to care staff being employed by the service. However, some references lacked information and there was a lack of evidence that some of these had been verified to check their authenticity. We have made a recommendation in respect of this.

The service had various systems in place to monitor the quality of the service being provided to people. However, they had failed to identify deficiencies we found in relation to medicines and staff recruitment.

People were protected from abuse. Staff we spoke were confident that if they raised any concerns with the registered manager, appropriate action would be taken.

Staff followed infection prevention and control guidance to minimise risks related to the spread of infection.

Staff supported people to eat and drink in line with their preferences.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Feedback we obtained about the service was mixed. Some people and family members spoke positively about the care provided. However, some feedback indicated that people and family members were not satisfied with the care and support received. We raised this with the management team. They advised they would act on this and arrange conversations with people and family members to try and ensure their concerns were resolved.

People had an initial assessment prior to them receiving a service. This captured their needs, abilities and preferences.

Care plans included information about people's interests and important things in their life. Information documented was specific to each person. However, there was a lack of information about people’s cultural needs. We raised this with the operations manager.

Staff told us they were well supported by the registered manager. They were confident that the registered manager would listen and address any concerns if they raised them.

The operations manager was receptive to the feedback we provided and said that they would use this to drive improvements to the service.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 28 July 2022 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected:

This was a planned comprehensive inspection to review the key questions, Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led and rate this service.

The inspection was prompted because the service has not had an inspection and a rating since it was first registered with us.

Enforcement and recommendations

We have identified one breach in relation to safe care and treatment during this inspection. We have also made recommendations in relation to staff recruitment.

We will continue to monitor the service and will take further action if needed.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.