17 October 2023
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Fernside is a small residential care home without nursing that provides support for up to 4 people aged 18-65 with complex medical, physical and learning needs. It is located in a purpose-built bungalow with a large level access garden. At the time of our inspection the home was providing support to 4 people.
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.
Right Support:
People who were able to, told us they felt safe and happy at the home. People looked happy, calm, and content when spending time with staff. Relatives and health professionals felt people were well cared for and safe. A familiar and consistent group of care staff meant they knew people well.
Risks to people were assessed and regularly reviewed. Positive risk taking was encouraged.
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.
Right Care:
People could communicate with staff and understand information given to them because staff supported them consistently and understood their individual communication needs. Staff demonstrated a good understanding of the signs and symptoms that may indicate a person is experiencing poor care and abuse and knew how to report this appropriately. They felt confident appropriate and timely action would be taken by the registered manager. People received their prescribed medicines appropriately from trained staff and had regular reviews to ensure they remained effective.
Right Culture:
There was an open, supportive and homely culture at Fernside. Staff felt supported by management and their colleagues. They were encouraged to take on new skills and qualifications to help further improve the care people received. Relatives and professionals spoke highly of the registered manager who they saw as approachable, receptive and engaged with securing good outcomes for people. The home worked well with other organisations such as GP surgeries, day centres, epilepsy team and physiotherapists.
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 12 April 2018).
Why we inspected
This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.
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.
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 based on the findings of this inspection.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Fernside on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.