23 March 2023
During a routine inspection
London Care (Willow House) scheme provides care and support to older people and people with mental health needs living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. Willow House is a purpose-built block of flats on three levels, containing 40 flats. People remain independent and live in their own flat within their community. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for extra care housing; this inspection looked at people’s personal care. There were 38 people living at the scheme at the time of this inspection.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People were kept safe from avoidable harm because staff knew them well and understood how to protect them from abuse. The service worked well with other agencies to do so.
There were effective systems and processes in place to minimise risks to people. The assessments provided information about how to support people to ensure risks were reduced.
There were enough care workers deployed to keep people safe. Appropriate recruitment checks had been carried out for all care workers so suitable staff were employed.
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.
There were systems in place to ensure proper and safe use of medicines. Staff followed effective processes to assess and provide the support people needed to take their medicines safely.
People were protected from the risks associated with poor infection control because the service had processes in place to reduce the risk of infection and cross contamination.
There was a process in place to report, monitor and learn from accidents and incidents. Accidents were documented in a timely way which was in line with the service’s policy and guidance.
There was an effective training system in place. Care workers demonstrated good knowledge and skills necessary for their role.
Governance processes were effective and helped to hold staff to account, kept people safe, protected their rights and provided good quality care and support. Audits were used to good effect, which resulted in people achieving good outcomes.
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 the service was requires improvement, (published on 28 November 2018).
Why we inspected
This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.