5 June 2023
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Autism Wessex - Middle Path is a residential care home for up to 4 people who are autistic or who have other complex needs linked to brain injury. The home comprises of the main house, which accommodates 3 people and an attached 1 bedroom annexe. At the time of the inspection there were 3 people living in the main part of the home and 1 person living in the annexe.
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:
Risks to people were assessed and regularly reviewed. People told us they felt safe. Relatives and a health professional agreed. A familiar and consistent group of care staff meant staff knew people well and understood their individual needs.
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 did support this practice.
Right Care:
Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. People received their medicines on time and had annual reviews to ensure they were not over medicated. People could communicate with staff and understand information given to them because staff supported them consistently and understood their individual communication needs.
Right Culture:
Inconsistent management of the service since the last inspection in 2018 had impacted the culture, team cohesion and had made staff feel unsettled. Staff told us they did not always feel supported by the management. A manager had started at the home 2 months prior to the inspection, recognised the issues we found and was working with the provider and staff on a service improvement plan to address the issues and provide stability.
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 15 March 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 Autism Wessex – Middle Path 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.