Seaview

Seaview is a residential care home providing personal care to 5 people with learning and support needs at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to six people and is provided across three floors of one adapted building.

The service has been developed and designed in line with the principles and values that underpin Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. This ensures that people who use the service can live as full a life as possible and achieve the best possible outcomes. The principles reflect the need for people with learning disabilities and/or autism to live meaningful lives that include control, choice, and independence. People using the service receive planned and co-ordinated person-centred support that is appropriate for them and inclusive.

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

People told us that they were happy living at the service and with the support they received. A relative told us, “They are absolutely brilliant. Seaview has worked so hard to give [my relative] a good quality of life.”

People continued to be supported to remain safe and risks to their health and safety were well managed. People were protected from abuse. Medicines were well managed, and people received these on time and as prescribed.

Staff were well supported and supervised and had the skills and training they needed to support people. Staff continued to be recruited safely to make sure they were suitable to work with people with support needs.

People’s needs continued to be assessed in a holistic way prior to them moving in to the service. The assessment process was thorough and were used to plan people’s support. People were supported to access healthcare services including dental care when they needed to do so.

The service applied the principles and values of Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. The outcomes for people using the service reflected the principles and values of Registering the Right Support by promoting choice and control, independence and inclusion. These ensure people who use the service can live as full a life as possible and achieve the best possible outcomes which include control, choice and independence.

People were involved in decisions about their care and were supported to make choices. 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.

Staff were caring, and people were treated with kindness. Staff knew people well and used their knowledge to assist people to communicate and express their views about their care and support. People were listened to and supported with their emotions. Staff respected people’s privacy and people were treated in a dignified manner.

People had the opportunity to feedback about their support and any concerns though surveys, house meetings and were comfortable raising issues with the registered manager. People and their relatives knew how to complain if they choose to do so.

There were systems in place to check and maintain the quality of the service to ensure people received a good standard of care. The service continued to work in partnership with other service to improve outcomes for people. Incidents and accidents continued to be reported appropriately and were used as learning opportunities to improve people’s support.

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 on 5 May 2017).

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

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.

The previous inspection on the 9 July 2014 found no areas of concern and an overall rating of ‘Good’ was given at that inspection. At this inspection we found the service remained Good.

The registered manager had left the service in January 2017 and deregistered with the Commission in March 2017. The deputy manager had been promoted and had been managing the service with the support of the operations manager; they were in the process of applying for registration with the Commission. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

There were enough staff with the right skills and knowledge to support people. Staff had good support and supervision to fulfil their roles effectively and felt well supported by the manager. People were protected by the service using safe and robust recruitment processes, staff understood how to recognise and raise concerns about people’s safety.

There were safe processes for storing and administering medicines. Medicines were administered by trained staff and were regularly audited to ensure errors were identified quickly.

Accidents and incidents were recorded and audited to identify patterns. The manager was supported by the provider’s quality assurance team to minimise the risk of repeating incidents. The risk of harm to people was reduced as risk assessments had been implemented. Staff understood that although they had a duty of care to help keep people safe, people were also free to make their own choices even if this could increase the level of risk to that person.

Appropriate checks were made to keep people safe. Safety checks had been made regularly on equipment and the environment.

The manager demonstrated a clear understanding of the process that must be followed if people were deemed to lack capacity to make their own decisions and the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005. They ensured people’s rights were protected by meeting the requirements of the Act.

People’s health needs were responded to promptly and healthcare professionals said they felt well informed about people’s needs when they changed. People had choice around their food and drinks and staff encouraged them to make their own decisions and choices. Individual support was given to people with specialised requirements around their food and professional healthcare advice was listened to.

People were supported to take part in activities, which were suitable for their individual needs and had the opportunity to discuss activities they wished to undertake in the future. People discussed their aspirations with their key workers and action was taken to achieve them.

Staff demonstrated caring attitudes and communicated with people in a respectful and dignified way. People felt confident and comfortable in their home and staff were easily approachable. Interactions between people and staff were positive and encouraged engagement.

Complaints were listened and responded to appropriately. People could access an easy read version of the complaints procedure if they had any concerns about the care and treatment they received.

The provider strived to continually improve the service and to improve the lives of the people. They conducted their own internal audits and quality assurance checks so improvement was driven.