Royal Mencap Society, Churchfields offers personal care and support to people living in rented homes with a tenancy agreement in place. At the time of our inspection they were supporting 21 people, 14 of whom were supported with personal care. People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Staff knew who to report to if they felt a person was at risk of potential abuse. However, they felt the management of the service did not always listen to them and felt communication within the service between the management and them was poor. We have made a recommendation regarding this under the well led section of this report.
Staff generally felt there were enough staff working in the service. However, there had been changes in staffing hours and staff told us the reasons for this had not been fully explained to them even though, they had expressed their concerns to management. Relatives and people, we spoke to told us they felt there were enough staff to provide the support to them when they needed assistance.
Medication was administered by staff who had received training to do so and medicines were managed safely. Risk assessments were in place, which identified possible risks and how to manage them.
The provider had systems in place to monitor the quality of the service. Actions were taken and improvements were made when required. Relatives felt able to speak with the staff team at any time if they needed to know about their loved one. However, the general feedback from relatives was that the communication from the management of the service could be better
The last rating for this service was good (published 15 September 2017).
Why we inspected
We received concerns in relation to safeguarding and infection control processes. 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.
We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern.
We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Royal Mencap Churchfields website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.