14 January 2016
During a routine inspection
The Red House is a care home without nursing for up to seven people with learning disabilities. People who use the service may have additional needs and present behaviours which can be perceived as challenging. It is a detached property in a residential area with local amenities nearby. There were six people using the service at the time of the inspection.
There was a new manager working in The Red House. They told us they had been working for the company for the last four months. An application has been received in respect of the new manager being registered with the Care Quality Commission. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.’
People had access to other health professionals. However, the records of these appointments did not capture the outcome or any follow up. This meant people could not be assured their health needs were being met and the advice of health care professionals followed.
There were suitable arrangements in place for the safe storage, receipt and administration of people’s medicines.
People and their families were provided with opportunities to express their needs, wishes and preferences regarding how they lived their daily lives. This included meetings with staff members and other health and social care professionals.
People were supported to access and attend a range of activities. People were supported by the staff to use the local community facilities and had been supported to develop skills which promoted their independence.
People’s needs were regularly assessed and care plans provided guidance to staff on how people were to be supported. The planning of people’s care, treatment and support was personalised to reflect people’s preferences and personalities.
The staff at the home had a clear knowledge of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLs). These safeguards aim to protect people from being inappropriately deprived of their liberty. These safeguards can only be used when a person lacks the mental capacity to make certain decisions and there is no other way of supporting the person safely.
Where people lacked capacity, best interests meetings had taken place involving other professionals ensuring decisions were made in peoples’ best interests.
The staff recruitment process was robust to ensure the staff employed would have the skills to support people. Staff were knowledgeable about people. They had received suitable training to support people safely enabling them to respond to their care and support needs.
The service maintained daily records of how peoples support needs were met. Staff respected people’s privacy and we saw staff working with people in a kind and compassionate way responding to their needs.
There was a complaints procedure for people, families and friends to use and compliments could also be recorded. We saw that the service took time to work with and understand people’s individual way of communicating so that the service staff could respond appropriately to the person.
The provider had quality monitoring systems in place which were used to bring about improvements to the service.
We found a breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of this report.