13 December 2023
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Weston House is a residential care home providing personal care to up to 33 people. The service provides support to adults with mental health conditions. At the time of our inspection there were 27 people living in the home. People lived in 1 adapted building which consisted of 2 floors and a range of communal areas for people to enjoy.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
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 statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people. We considered this guidance as there were people using the service who have a learning disability and or who are autistic.
Infection prevention and control was not effective throughout the building which meant people were at risk of catching and spreading infections. Quality checks were not always effective in identifying risks such as cleanliness and environmental safety.
People were not always supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not always support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did not always support this practice. People’s medicines protocols did not always contain enough information for staff. People’s care plans and risk assessments were not always accurate and kept up-to-date, however, they were person-centred. Staff recruitment processes were not always robust.
Staff knew how to keep people safe from abuse and lessons were being learned when things went wrong. Staff knew people well. People, staff and relatives felt positive about the home management. Staff worked in partnership with other organisations.
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 2 April 2020) and there were 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 not been made and the provider remained in breach of regulations. This service has been rated requires improvement for the last 2 consecutive inspections.
Why we inspected
We received concerns in relation to people’s care and safety. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led.
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 remains requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection.
We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this report.
You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.
The manager was responsive to feedback and addressed some of the environmental risks swiftly.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘All inspection reports and timeline’ link for Weston House on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Enforcement
We have identified breaches in relation to environmental safety, cleanliness, governance and oversight at this inspection.
Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to the more serious concerns found during inspections is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.