16 May 2023
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Portland Street is a residential care home providing accommodation and personal care for up to 13 people. The service provides support to people with mental health needs. At the time of our inspection there were 10 people using the service but not all of them were in receipt of a regulated activity.
People's experience of using this service and what we found.
Improvements were noted across the whole service and actions were taken to ensure people’s safety and safeguard people from poor care or inappropriate treatment as far as reasonably possible because staff were vigilant and well trained.
Environmental improvements made since the last inspection meant the service provided a homely, well-maintained environment where equipment was regularly checked to ensure people’s continued safety. The environmental risk assessment did not fully address the potential risks from internal and external stairs. We discussed this with the manager about ensuring the risk assessment was fully updated.
Enough staff were employed to ensure people got the support they needed. Staff were friendly and motivated and understood people’s needs well. Staff trusted their manager and felt able to raise any concerns and their views about changes they would like to see.
The registered manager had a good understanding of the mental health system and was a strong advocate for people to ensure they got their needs met. The mental health teams were very complimentary about the staff team and their knowledge of mental health. They said they monitored people well and made referrals at the right time. Communication with external agencies were described as excellent.
Care records gave a good overview of people’s needs and the records were being reviewed to ensure they reflected the person-centred care provided. A range of social opportunities were provided to improve people’s mental and physical health.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
Medicines were managed safely and missed and refused medicines were brought to the attention of relevant professionals to seek appropriate advice.
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.
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 Inadequate (published October 2022). We found breaches of regulations: for safe care and treatment, consent, staffing, person centred care and good governance. Warning notices were served for all the breaches. 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 been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.
This service has been in Special Measures since 30/09/2022. During our inspection on the 16/05/2023 the provider demonstrated that improvements had been made. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is no longer in Special Measures
Why we inspected
We undertook this focused inspection to follow up on the warning notices and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe, Effective and Well-led which contain those requirements. 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 changed from inadequate to good.
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.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Portland Street on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Follow up
We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.