Unity House

Updated 25 March 2023

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

An inspector completed the inspection.

Service and service type

Unity House is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and personal care as single package dependent on their registration with us. Unity House is a care home without nursing. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was unannounced.

What we did before inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.

During the inspection

We spoke with 5 people who used the service, observed the care provided to another 4 people and contacted 4 relatives. We spoke with the registered manager, 2 deputy managers, 2 team leaders, 8 support workers and the administrator.

We reviewed a range of records. This included 6 people’s care records, medicine records and staff files. We looked at a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including audits.

Updated 25 March 2023

About the service

Unity House is a residential service providing personal care for up to 22 people with a learning disability. At the time of the inspection there were 11 people living at the service. Unity House provides accommodation over two floors across one large purpose-built house and some areas of the home have been converted to self-contained flats.

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

People were regularly asked for their opinions and gave them freely. People were involved in discussions about their support and given information in a way they understood. Where people had support, they told us this was flexible, available when they needed it and to the level they needed. People were supported safely with medicines. Infection prevention and control practices reflected current guidance.

Right Care

Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. The service worked well with other agencies to do so. The service had enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it. The provider understood the new electronic assessment tool required further enhancement to ensure it fully covered people’s needs.

Right culture

The service was open to new ways of working and ongoing improvements were introduced to promote independence and inclusivity. Staff placed people’s wishes, needs and rights at the heart of everything they did. They sought advice and feedback from everyone involved in people's care. Staff were aware of and were working to best practice guidance for supporting people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 3 September 2021).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

This report only covers our findings in relation to the key questions safe and well-led. For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Unity House 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.