About the service Real Life Options - 96 Harrowdene Road is a residential care home providing personal care to a maximum of six people with learning disabilities who may also have physical disabilities and/or sensory impairments. At the time of the inspection there were four people living in the care home.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
We saw positive engagement between staff and people using the service. People were treated with respect and dignity.
People's care and support were personalised. Staff knew people well. They understood and supported people's individual needs, interests and preferences.
Systems were in place to protect people from abuse. People’s relatives were confident that allegations of abuse would be dealt with appropriately.
Appropriate staff recruitment systems helped to ensure only suitable staff were employed in the home.
Personalised risk assessments were in place. Staff received the training they needed to keep people safe and were committed to supporting people to be as independent as possible.
Staff and people using the service participated in the regular COVID-19 testing and vaccination programme.
People who used the service received their medicines safely.
There were quality assurance systems in place that monitored the service provided to people. Action had been taken make improvements when needed.
Staff worked with healthcare and social care professionals, to ensure that people received an effective and safe service.
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 the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.
This service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting the underpinning principles of Right support, right care, right culture. The model of care and setting maximises people’s choice, control and independence. People received person-centred care and their dignity, privacy and human rights were promoted. Attitudes and behaviours of the registered manager and care staff enabled and supported people to lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives.
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 28 August 2019)
Why we inspected
The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about an allegation of neglect, incidents, and earlier this year issues to do with COVID-19 testing. A decision was made for us to inspect and examine those risks. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of Safe and Well-led only.
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 these. 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 remains good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from these concerns. Please see the Safe and Well-led sections of this full report. The provider had taken effective action to mitigate risks to people.
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.
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.