Housing 21 - Charles Court

Updated 3 February 2024

The inspection

We carried out this performance review and assessment under Section 46 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act). We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements of the regulations associated with the Act and looked at the quality of the service to provide a rating.

Unlike our standard approach to assessing performance, we did not physically visit the office of the location. This is a new approach we have introduced to reviewing and assessing performance of some care at home providers. Instead of visiting the office location we use technology such as electronic file sharing and video or phone calls to engage with people using the service and staff.

Inspection team

The inspection team consisted of 1 inspector.

Service and service type

This service provides care and support to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. The accommodation is rented and is the occupant’s own home. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for extra care housing; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support service.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

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

Notice of inspection

The inspection was announced. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be available to support the inspection.

This performance review and assessment was carried out without a visit to the location’s office. We used technology such as telephone calls to enable us to engage with people using the service and staff, and electronic file sharing to enable us to review documentation.’ The inspection started on 08 January 2024 and ended on 28 January 2024.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with the registered manager and gathered feedback from 9 staff. We spoke to 4 people using the service over the telephone. We looked at the care records for 2 people, including risk assessments. We looked at governance systems, policies and procedures and training records.

Updated 3 February 2024

About the service

Housing 21- Charles Court is an extra care support scheme which provides personal care for up to 40 people who live on the premises in their own flats. The service has communal areas which include a fitness suite, restaurant, lounge and hair salon. At the time of our inspection there were 27 people receiving personal care.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.

People’s experience of the service and what we found:

At the time of the inspection, the location did not care or support for anyone with a learning disability or an autistic person. However, we assessed the care provision under Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture, as it is registered as a specialist service for this population group.

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. People were made to feel safe by a staff team who were trained to recognise and respond to concerns of abuse and manage people's risks in a safe way. Medicines were managed safely. People received consistent support from a staff team who were punctual and who knew people's needs well. Care plans were detailed and gave staff the information they needed to be able to care and support people in the most effective way.

Right Care:

There were enough staff available to meet people's needs. Staff worked well with other agencies to ensure people received consistent and timely support.

Right Culture:

There were systems in place to identify when things went wrong and learning was adopted to prevent future occurrences. The registered manager promoted an open culture where staff felt valued and proud. The provider and registered manager worked well with other agencies and organisations to improve the quality of care people received.

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 24 Jan 2018)

Why we inspected

We undertook this focused inspection as part of a random selection of services rated Good and Outstanding. 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 remained Good based on the findings of this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘All inspection reports and timeline’ link for Housing 21-Charles Court 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.

This was an ‘inspection using remote technology’. This means we did not visit the office location and instead used technology such as electronic file sharing to gather information, and video and phone calls to engage with people using the service as part of this performance review and assessment.