Housing 21 - Brookside Court

Updated 11 October 2018

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked 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 comprehensive inspection took place on the 12 and 17 of September 2018 and was announced. We gave the service 16 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because the location provides a domiciliary care service and staff could often be out during the day. We needed to be sure that they would be in. The inspection team consisted of one adult social care inspector.

Before the inspection we reviewed information available to us about this service. The registered provider had completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). The PIR is a form that asks the registered provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We also reviewed safeguarding alerts; share your experience forms and notifications that had been sent to us. A notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law.

We spoke with six people who lived at Brookside Court and two of their relatives. The registered manager was not available at this inspection, however we spoke with two assistant managers, four care staff and the Extra care manager for the North West. We reviewed four people's care records, looked at four care files and four staff files and reviewed records relating to the management of medicines, complaints, training and how the registered persons monitored the quality of the service.

Updated 11 October 2018

Housing and Care 21- Brookside Court provides care and support to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. The accommodation is rented, and is the occupant’s own home, there are 40 flats at this location. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for extra care housing; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support service. There were 38 people receiving care and support at the time of this inspection.

At the last inspection in April 2016 the service was rated Good. At this inspection we found the service remained Good. Feedback provided by people using the service included, “The staff are very caring, excellent in fact” and “The support from the staff is brilliant, no complaints whatsoever”. Friends and family who were at people’s homes when we visited them were equally positive, “My [relative] has a lot of support from the staff and they are really good. The managers listen and will act on things we request on behalf of [relative]”.

Staff have an understanding of the person centred care they provide and we were told by one staff member that “Everyone is different and we provide what they need in relation to their care and support the way they want it”.

People are supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff support them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service support this practice.

Staff have a good understanding of systems in place to manage medicines, safeguarding matters and behaviours that are challenging to others. People's medicines are managed so that they receive them safely, all medication is in a secure place in people’s homes and recorded in their care plan.

We have made a recommendation about the management of recording medicines.

There were sufficient staff available to ensure people's wellbeing, safety and security was protected, however there has been a lot of short notice sickness that had put pressure on the care staff in the last couple of months. A robust recruitment and selection process is in place. This ensures prospective new staff have the right skills and are suitable to work with people living at the extra care living facility.

Staff are compassionate, kind and caring and have developed good relationships with people using the service. People are comfortable in the presence of staff. Relatives confirmed the staff were caring and looked after people very well.

A lot of consideration and thought has gone into the decoration and layout of the service. The overall effect created is a homely and peaceful environment in all communal areas at the scheme with due consideration given to the needs of people with dementia.

Staff spoke consistently about the service being a good place to work and that they enjoyed their roles. Care staff told us they were happy with the training and felt supported by the manager.

When we completed our previous inspection on 26/04/2016 we found concerns that confidential information was not always protected within the main office of the agency. At this time this topic area was included under the key question of Effective. We reviewed and refined our assessment framework and published the new assessment framework in October 2017. Under the new framework this topic area is included under the key question of caring. Therefore, for this inspection, we have inspected this key question and also the previous key question of Effective to make sure all areas are inspected to validate the ratings.