Seashell Health Service

Updated 30 November 2022

Seashell Health Service provides nursing treatment and therapy for students who attend the onsite residential special school and college, all the services are run by the provider Seashell Trust. Students range from primary school age up to 25. The health team work with all children and young people in the school and college and team involvement is tailored for each student dependent on their needs.

Seashell Trust is a national learning disability charity and supports children and young adults with complex learning difficulties, disabilities, and additional communication needs from across the UK. They provide education, care, and support for people aged from two to 25 years at the school and college (the school was rated outstanding by Ofsted and the college was rated as good), in residential homes, and through supported living services, community facilities at the site in Cheadle Hulme. At the time of our inspection there was a Registered Manager in post.

It is registered for the following regulated activity:

• Treatment of disease, disorder, and injury
• The service registered with the Care Quality Commission in 2021 and has never been inspected.

What people who use the service say

We spoke to four children and young adults using the service. They told us positive things about their care, such as how they were looked after well, the staff were kind and how they were being supported to prepare to move on from the service next year.

Updated 30 November 2022

This is the first time we have inspected this service. We rated it as outstanding because:

• The service was safe. Risk assessments were extremely detailed and personalised. They clearly explained to staff what the risks were and how to manage them. There was only one vacancy within the service, staffing was planned around the needs of the group of children and young people who were attending the school and college at that time. The safeguarding processes at the service were robust. There were comprehensive systems to keep people safe, which took account of current best practice. The whole team was engaged in reviewing and improving safety and safeguarding systems. People who used services were at the centre of safeguarding and protection from discrimination. The Registered Manager was the designated safeguarding lead, and the provider had external members on their safeguarding board for additional scrutiny of safeguarding concerns. The annual training package was developed to meet the needs of the children and young people that were attending the school and college that academic year. Although there were some mandatory training courses that ran year on year, others were completed for specific children and young people to meet their specific needs. Staff not only met good practice standards in relation to national guidance, they also contributed to research and development of national guidance. Staff reported incidents appropriately and they were used for learning and improvement. People were able to transition seamlessly between services because there was advance planning and information sharing between teams.
• The service provided effective care. There was a truly holistic approach to assessing, planning, and delivering care and treatment to all people who use services The service provided care and treatment based on national guidance and were commissioned by NHS England to produce some of the national guidance around hearing checks for special residential schools. Every member of staff was trained in positive behavioural support, and it formed the basis of all work they did with children and young people. The service had recognised that traditional outcome measuring tools did not always pick up on the less noticeable improvements that some of their children and young people made, these small improvements were sometimes massive for that individual. The team had therefore, researched different outcome measuring tools and found one that would recognise these key achievements in a measurable way. Staff had worked hard over the last twelve months to improve communication with families and carers around the mental capacity act. This was a particular focus for those children who were due to turn 16. Easy read leaflets and information was provided by the service to those families to ensure families and carers understood the differences in consent for over 16s. The continuing development of the staff’s skills, competence and knowledge was recognised as being integral to ensuring high quality care. Staff were proactively supported and encouraged to acquire new skills, use their transferable skills, and share best practice, with many staff attending national conferences to present about their work and research.
• People are truly respected and valued as individuals. Student and carer feedback about the staff was universally positive. Carers of Children and Young People told us that the staff had changed their lives and that the level of support they received had gone beyond what was expected of them. Children and Young People felt that staff genuinely cared about their wellbeing, and took the extra time needed to get to know them individually. Children and Young People were truly partners in their own care, they were empowered to have a voice and realise their own potential. Families/carers were involved in all decisions about their loved one's care and treatment, and the multi-disciplinary team spent time explaining different options available to Children and Young People, using innovative and creative ways to ensure Children and Young people maintained independence as much as possible.
• The service was highly responsive to the needs of the children, young people and their families accessing it. Children and Young people’s individual needs and preferences are central to the delivery of tailored services The service was completely planned around the children and young people who would be attending the school and college for that academic year. Transition plans were detailed, and person centred. The service also had a raft of accessible information for the children and young people who used the service. This included, social stories about vaccinations and taking medicines, easy read mental capacity act leaflets, pictoral guide to hydrotherapy and hearing checks to name a few. Families and carers told us they would have no reservations in raising concerns, and no doubt that if they did, these would be taken seriously. The service had access on site to a wide range of equipment, including innovative technology to ensure that children and young people using the correct equipment for their needs that was assessed as suitable by a qualified professional. This included a hydrotherapy pool and an audiology department.
• The service was well led. The leadership, governance and culture were used to drive and improve the delivery of high-quality person-centred care. There was compassionate, inclusive and effective leadership at all levels. Leaders at all levels demonstrated the high levels of experience, capacity and capability needed to deliver excellent and sustainable care. There was a deeply embedded system of leadership development and succession planning, which aims to ensure that the leadership represents the diversity of the staff and Children and Young People. All staff told us that the senior team were visible and frequently spent time in the service, not only for meetings but to meet Children and Young People and get to know them and support the staff team. The senior team were experienced in their field and had worked in the specialised area for some time. The systems in place to support staff, enabled them to do their work much more easily. The team had a clear vision about the future for the service and were working hard to ensure this materialised. The strategy and supporting objectives and plans were stretching, challenging and innovative, while remaining achievable. The passion for the service shown by the senior leaders within the service was clear for all to see and staff remarked on how this leadership and support had impacted positively on the morale of the team. All staff we spoke to were extremely proud to work within health service and wanted to ensure that they did their best for the Children and Young People who were in their care. The team were involved in research to improve the service and presented regularly at conferences across the country about various aspects of the work they did.

Updated 30 November 2022