Birnbeck House - Care Home Learning Disabilities

Updated 21 May 2024

Date of assessment 5 June to 26 June 2024. We visited the service on 5, 11 and 18 June 2024. We reviewed records offsite and spoke with staff, managers, people, relatives, friends and advocates between 5 June 2024 to 26 June 2024. Birnbeck House – Care Home Learning Disabilities is a is a residential care home providing care to people with a learning disability and autistic people which can accommodate up to 13 people. At the time of our inspection 11 people were living at the home. We used the Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us. 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. This was a responsive assessment due to concerns raised to us about the service. We did not assess all quality statements at this assessment. We reviewed 6 quality statements in Safe, Effective and Well-led key questions. For those areas we did not assess, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. We found 6 breaches of the legal regulations in relation to safeguarding, safe care and treatment, governance, staffing, person centred care and dignity and respect. You can find more detail about our findings in the report below. We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at the assessment.

Updated 21 May 2024

The service was not always able to demonstrate how they were meeting the underpinning principles of right support, right care, right culture. People’s capacity to make decisions for themselves in specific areas had not always been assessed and the principles of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) had not always been followed. People were at increased risk of harm because not all risks to people had been identified and assessed. Risks of abuse to people were not always identified and reported. Relatives told us their loved ones were safe and they were kept informed of any concerns. They said medicines were managed effectively for people. There was a high turnover of staff within the service, however there were enough staff. Relatives said some outcomes had been achieved for people but they were not assured they had been implemented or were person centred. Advocates told us there had been delays in referrals being made. People were observed to be comfortable in the presence of staff and we saw some positive engagement between staff and people living at the service. However, our assessment found elements of people’s care did not meet the expected standard.