12 October 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
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 the Care Quality Commission (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.
United Response – 21 North View is a residential care home providing personal care and support to people, some of who may be living with learning disabilities and autism. The service can support up to 6 people.
People's experience of using this service and what we found
Right Support
¿ Staff supported people to follow their interests, such as swimming, music events, film nights and accessing the local community.
¿ People were supported to access specialist health and social care support by staff who knew them well and identified changes in their needs.
¿ Staff worked with a Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) specialist to help ensure there were positive strategies in place. PBS is a person-centred framework for providing support to people with a learning disability, and/or autism, including those with mental health conditions, who have, or may be at risk of developing, behaviours that challenge.
¿ Staff ensured people took their medicines safely.
Right Care
¿ Staff were well trained and received good ongoing support from the provider. There were sufficient staff to meet people’s needs safely. The registered manager did not have well established senior support in place. We have made a recommendation about this.
¿ Staff communicated with people well, using body language and demonstrating a knowledge of people’s non-verbal cues. The registered manager acknowledged they needed to improve the way people and families could engage with care planning and review. We have made a recommendation about this.
¿ Staff upheld people’s dignity by caring for them in a patient and skilled way.
¿ Staff had training on safeguarding and knew how to keep people safe. They worked well with other agencies to identify and reduce risks.
Right culture
¿ The ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of the management and staff were in line with the key principles of guidance such as Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture. Staff felt well supported and there was a newly permanent core to the team. They understood their roles and responsibilities.
¿ Staff regularly reviewed and audited key information and documents. Lessons had been learned from previous incidents.
¿ People and those close to them had been involved in care planning but the provider needed to do more to ensure ongoing care reviews and engagement with people and relatives was accessible and inclusive.
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 August 2019).
Why we inspected
This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.
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.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our reinspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.