Sharon House

Updated 27 May 2022

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

The inspection was undertaken by one inspector.

Service and service type

Sharon house is a 'care home'. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as a single package under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

Registered Manager

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

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

Notice of inspection

We carried out the inspection visit on 11 May 2022. It was unannounced.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed the information we held about the home which included statutory notifications and safeguarding alerts the service was not asked to complete the Provider Information Return (PIR). The PIR is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

During the inspection

We went to the care home and spoke with the registered manager, two support workers and two people who used the service. We looked at two care records and three staff records; we also looked at various documents relating to the management of the service. After the inspection visit, we also spoke with two relatives to get their feedback.

Updated 27 May 2022

About the service

Sharon House is a residential care home providing personal care and accommodation to up to five people with a learning disability. On the day of our inspection there were three people living in the care home.

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.

People's experience of using this service and what we found

Right Support;

Staff supported people to have the maximum possible choice, control and independence over their lives. People were supported by staff to pursue their interests in the local community. The service provided people with care and support in a safe, clean and homely environment which met their physical and sensory needs. Staff enabled people to access specialist health and social care and support in the community. Staff supported people with their medicines safely to achieve the best possible health outcomes.

Right Care:

People received kind and compassionate care. Staff protected and respected people's privacy and dignity. They understood and responded to their individual needs. Staff understood people's cultural needs and provided culturally appropriate care. Relatives spoke positively about the staff team People could communicate with staff and understand information given to them because staff supported them consistently and understood their individual communication needs. People could pursue interests that were important to them to them.

Right culture;

People were supported by staff who understood best practice in relation to the wide range of strengths, impairments and sensitivities people with a learning disability or autism may have. Staff had worked in the service for many years and knew and understood people well. They were responsive and supported peoples wishes to live a quality life of their choosing. People and their relatives were involved with planning their care.

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.

Areas in which the service required improvement at the last inspection around medicines management and oversight had now been addressed.

Risks to people were assessed and regularly reviewed. Staff understood the actions needed to minimise the risk of avoidable harm including the prevention of avoidable infection. Staff had completed safeguarding training and understood their role in identifying and reporting any concerns of potential abuse or poor

practice.

Staff praised the registered manager of the service and agreed that they were approachable, knowledgeable, fair and did their job well. The staff worked well together and supported the registered manager.

Staff were committed to providing a quality service. They had undertaken training so that they were skilled and knowledgeable to effectively meet people’s needs.

The provider had informal systems in place to monitor and improve the quality and safety of the service provided.

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.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, effective and well-led only. 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 based on the findings of this inspection.

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 the service was requires improvement (published 18 May 2021)

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information, we may inspect sooner.