About the service Willow House is a residential care home that was providing personal and nursing care to seven people with a range of needs including learning disabilities and distressed behaviours at the time of the inspection.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People felt safe and were supported by a group of staff who knew them well and how to keep them safe from harm. Staff were aware of the risks to people and were kept fully informed of any changes in people’s care needs. People received their medicines as prescribed. Where accidents and incidents took place, they were acted on and reported appropriately. This information was regularly reviewed to identify any trends or lessons to be learnt.
Staff followed the latest infection control guidance and had access to supplies of personal protective equipment. Systems were in place to ensure infection control measures were adhered to, which ensured the safety of service users and staff.
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.
We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, 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 providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.
The service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting some of the underpinning principles of Right support, right care, right culture. People were supported to maintain their independence and their views were respected. Staff knew people well and listened to what they had to say and what they wanted to do.
Right support:
• Model of care and setting maximises people’s choice, control and Independence
Right care:
• Care is person-centred and promotes people’s dignity, privacy and human Rights
Right culture:
• Ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and care staff ensure people
using services lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives
People, staff and relatives were complimentary of the service and considered it to be well led. The registered manager felt supported in their role and knew people well. People were involved in their care and their voices were heard. There were a number of quality audits in place to provide the registered manager with oversight of the service. The service worked alongside other professionals to ensure people’s health care needs were met.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was good (published 11 April 2019).
Why we inspected
We received concerns in relation to the support people received at the service and staffs’ ability to keep people safe from harm. 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 coronavirus and other infection outbreaks effectively.
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.
The overall rating for the service has remained the same. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe and well led sections of this full report.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Willow House on our 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.