Blossom House

Updated 23 March 2019

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 inspection took place on 31 January 2019 and was unannounced. The inspection was carried out by one adult social care inspector.

Before the inspection, we checked for any notifications made to us by the provider and the information we held on our database about the service and provider. Statutory notifications are pieces of information about important events which took place at the service, such as safeguarding incidents, which the provider is required to send to us by law. We reviewed the Provider Information Record (PIR). The PIR provides key information about the service, what the service does well and the improvements the provider plans to make. We also viewed a contract monitoring report by the local authority from 2018.

At the inspection we spoke with the registered manager and a support worker. Only one of the two people who lived at the service wished to speak with us; we heard the views of this person. We looked at two care records and two medicine administration records (MAR). We looked at staff training for the team and spot-checked supervision was taking place for three staff.

We looked at quality audits of the service, minutes of team and resident’s meetings and maintenance records. We looked at hygiene at the service and the safety of the building and the garden. We saw that there were key policies in place covering safeguarding, recruitment and complaints. We also checked the complaints and compliments records.

We received feedback on the service from one health and social care professional.

Updated 23 March 2019

The inspection took place on 31 January 2019 and was unannounced. The previous inspection took place on 1 August 2016 and the service was rated as Good.

Blossom House is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as a single package under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

The service is registered to provide residential accommodation and personal care for up two people living with a learning disability. At the time of our inspection two people were living at the home.

We have written this inspection report in a shorter format because our overall rating of the service as Good has not changed since our last inspection.

People felt safe at the service and staff understood how to safeguard people and knew what to do if they had any concerns.

People told us staff were kind to them. People were involved in a range of activities outside of the home and friendships were encouraged and supported.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; but the service could not evidence they had all the relevant paperwork in place to support this practice. There was a focus of person centred care within the service, which staff followed in practice to ensure people led a full and varied life.

Staff were safely recruited and were trained and supervised so they could support people effectively. Care records were up to date and risk assessments were in place.

This meant that care staff were provided with guidance on how to minimise the identified risk to keep people safe and free from harm.

Medicines were safely managed.

People were encouraged to be as independent as possible and told us they were responsible for tasks about the house and for caring for themselves.

The registered manager carried out audits to check the quality of the service.

Maintenance checks of gas, electricity and fire equipment took place to make sure the house was safe to live in. Regular fire drills took place.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.