18 January 2024
During a routine inspection
Ulysses House is a residential care home which can support up to 6 people. At the time of the inspection Ulysses House was providing personal care to 5 people aged under 65 with learning disabilities. The service can support up to 6 people. While the service was a large home and bigger than most domestic style properties, the environment was adapted in line with Registering the Right Support. There were deliberately no identifying signs, intercom, cameras, or anything else outside to indicate it was a care home. Staff were also discouraged from wearing anything that suggested they were care staff when coming and going with people.
We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people have 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.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
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. However, care plan reviews and best interest meetings undertaken required improvement to ensure the people, their relatives and advocates were involved in decisions and development of their care.
The provider gave people care and support in a safe, clean, well equipped, well-furnished and well-maintained environment that met their sensory and physical needs. Where people wanted support, staff enabled people to access specialist health support. Staff supported people with their medicines, however procedures currently in place required improving to ensure medicines were stored and managed safely.
Right Care:
People received kind and compassionate care. Staff understood and responded to their individual needs. Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. The service worked well with other agencies to do so. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it. People told us they received support from staff who knew them well and understood how to keep them safe. People’s care, treatment and support plans reflected their range of needs, and this promoted their wellbeing
Right Culture:
People received good care because of the ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of the management and staff. Staff knew and understood people well and were responsive, placing people’s wishes, needs and rights at the heart of everything they did. Staff evaluated the quality of support provided to people, involving the person, their families and other professionals as appropriate. Risks of a closed culture were minimised by staff so that people received support based on transparency, respect and inclusivity.
The manager demonstrated a commitment to delivering improvements and achieving best outcomes for people.
Rating at last inspection and update
The last rating for this service was good (published 01 April 2020).
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Ulysses House on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Why we inspected
We received concerns in relation to the management of the home and staffing. As a result, we undertook a comprehensive inspection. The overall rating for the service has changed from good to requires improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
Enforcement
We have identified breaches in relation to regulation 12, safe care and treatment at this inspection. We have served a requirement notice to the provider to improve in this area.
Follow up
We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.