18 October 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Heathcotes (Wakefield) is a residential care home providing personal to 18 people living with a learning disability at the time of the inspection. The service has two houses known as Agbrigg House and Sandal House. Each house can accommodate up to 8 people. The service also has 4 individual flats where people live semi-independently. The service can support up to 20 people.
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 supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
The service was designed to support people living in two eight bedded homes and four individual flats which promoted people’s independence. People had access to outside space, and this had been designed to meet their needs. People were supported to maintain a clean home with assistance from the staff team. People received their medicines as prescribed.
Right Care
People received support from staff who knew them well and understood their needs and considered their preferences. Staff interacted well with people and had a caring and respectful approach.
We found healthcare professionals had been referred to appropriately and staff ensured their advice was followed.
Right Culture
People were supported to lead lives that were person-centred and inclusive. People were involved in planning their support and deciding how they wanted staff to support them to meet their outcomes and achieve their goals.
Overarching governance systems included a series of audits which checked areas such as medication management, infection control and care planning. Action plans were used to develop and improve the service.
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 1 February 2021) and there were two breaches of regulation. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.
Why we inspected
We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions of Safe, Responsive and Well-led which contain those requirements.
For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
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.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Heathcotes (Wakefield) 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.