Archived: The Bungalow

This inspection took place on 14 May 2015 and was announced. We announced the inspection because the person who used the service was sometimes out in the local community. We needed to be sure that the person and the registered manager would be there at the time of the inspection.

There had been a change in legal entity of the provider. The previous provider, “Stephen & Claire Clark” was a partnership. They had been operating the organisation for 15 years. In January 2014 two new directors joined the partnership and they applied to register as a new provider, since they were now a limited company. They had been trying to register the new provider since January 2014. We had rejected their applications however, because they had either been incorrectly completed or because certain checks had expired due to the delays involved. We recently approved the new provider application in March 2015 for “Time to Care Specialist Support Services.” This is our first inspection of the service under the new legal entity.

The provider, Time to Care Specialist Support Services has two services; a care home, “Ashington 1” and a supported living service, “The Bungalow.” We inspected the Bungalow at the same time as Ashington 1. The same staff were used across both services and the same management structure was in place. Our findings for the Ashington1 service are discussed in a separate report.

The Bungalow provides personal care for one adult who lives in his own rented property in the Newcastle area. We have not included detailed examples of the care and support provided to ensure we do not identify the person using the service.

Due to the size of the service and the recent change in legal entity, we have decided not to rate the service. We did not identify any breaches during the inspection. However, there were certain areas where improvements were required, such as governance of the service.

There were systems in place to help reduce the risk of abuse. Safeguarding procedures were in place. In addition, risk assessments were documented which covered a range of areas such as accessing the local community and behaviour management.

Staff confirmed that relevant recruitment checks had been carried out before they started work. We found, however that evidence of certain pre-employment checks, which had been carried out by the previous provider for two staff, was not available. The registered manager was in the process of renewing DBS checks for all staff that had been employed prior to 2014.

One to one support was provided throughout the day. There was a sleep-in member of staff who would wake up if assistance was required during the night. The same staff were used for both the provider’s services.

We checked how the service followed the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA). It was unclear what legal framework was in place with regards to this person’s care. Following our inspection the manager informed us that she had contacted the local authority’s best interests assessors and deprivation of liberty team for advice.

The type of service provided was a ‘Supported Living’ service. Supported living is where people have their own tenancies and live with support in their own homes in the community.

Staff informed us that they encouraged the person to be as independent as possible. We found however, that there were some inconsistencies in staff support. We checked the person’s care plans and noted that these did not always specify what actions staff should take to encourage the person’s independence and ensure a consistent approach was taken. The manager told us that she had also identified this as an issue and had organised a staff meeting where care planning and promoting independence would be discussed.

The registered manager acknowledged that because of the small size of the organisation there was a need for improvement in the development of governance systems, particularly if suggested plans for organisational expansion were to materialise. There were some systems operational to monitor the quality of care including individual monthly reviews of the person’s care. The registered manager informed us that the governance systems were evolving to ensure that effective processes were in place.