The Reeds

The Reeds is a residential care home providing accommodation and personal care to up to 8 people. The service provides support to autistic people and people with a learning disability. At the time of our inspection there were 8 people using the service.

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

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 assessment and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Right Support

Staff supported people with their medicines in a safe way. The digital records system did not always show accuracy of medicine amounts in stock, but the provider was aware and making changes.

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 communicated with people in ways that met their needs. The service worked with people to plan for when they experienced periods of distress so their freedoms were restricted in the least restrictive way and only if there was no alternative.

The service gave people care and support in a safe, clean, well equipped, well-furnished and well-maintained environment met their sensory and physical needs.

Right Care

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.

The service had enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe.

People’s care, treatment and support plans reflected their range of needs, and this promoted their wellbeing and enjoyment of life.

Staff and people cooperated to assess risks people might face. Where appropriate, staff encouraged and enabled people to take positive risks.

Right Culture

Staff evaluated the quality of support provided to people, involving the person, their relatives and other professionals as appropriate. We found on 1 occasion, this was not completed in a timely way which risked a delay in improving staff practice and learning.

Staff ensured risks of a closed culture were minimised so people received support based on transparency, respect and inclusivity. The needs and safety of people formed the basis of the culture at the service. Staff understood their role in making sure people were always put first.

People received good quality care, support and treatment because trained staff and specialists could meet their needs and wishes.

Recommendations

We have made a recommendation relating to reviewing information to improve the service.

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 Outstanding (published 21 March 2018).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service and the length of time since the last inspection. We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only. For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Reeds 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.

The Reeds is registered to provide accommodation and personal care for up to eight people who may have learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder.

There was a registered manager for the home. 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.

This was the first inspection since the service was registered.

The provider had effective systems in place to ensure that there were always the correct amount of staff with the appropriate skills and training needed to provide safe care for people. There was a structured induction program to ensure staff developed the skills needed to work for the provider and ongoing training to ensure staffs skills remained up to date. Staff were provided with support from their line manager and external consultants to ensure they were working in line with best practice. Recruitment processes ensured staff were safe to work with people at the home.

Staff had received training in how to keep people safe. Staff worked with the Positive Behavioural Support (PBS) team to help people manage their behaviours and reduce the need to restrain people for their own safety. Incidents were reviewed and changes made in care to support positive behaviour in people.

Risks to people were managed and care was planned to keep people safe. The registered manager had submitted appropriate applications under the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) to ensure people’s human rights were protected. People’s abilities to make choices were respected and where needed decisions were made in people’s best interests. Where people had the ability to make an informed choice about risk taking staff worked with people to support their choices. Other risks to people were identified and appropriate action taken to keep people safe.

People’s medicines were available to them when needed and stored safely. People were able to make choices about their food and their diet was individualised to meet their needs. Appropriate advice was taken to ensure that people could eat and drink safely.

Staff were kind, caring and knew how to personalise care to meet people’s individual needs. They respected people’s privacy and dignity and people’s achievements were celebrated. Staff understood people’s communication needs and supported them to make their views known. People’s personal environment had been decorated to reflect them as an individual and the care they needed.

Staff ensured that people’s needs were assessed and care plans reflected their individual needs and were updated when people’s needs changed. People and their relatives had been involved in planning their care. People were supported with meaningful activities which supported their well-being and encouraged them to access the local community.

People living at the home and their relatives were able to raise concerns and the provider took action to improve the care they received. People’s views about the quality of care they received were gathered and used to drive improvements in care. Additionally people were involved in the running of the home and their views were taken into account when recruiting staff or making changes.

The provider had effective systems in place to monitor the quality of care people received and took action when any concerns were identified. Staff felt supported and were encouraged to develop. The provider was working towards a no blame culture and concerns raised were used to continually improve the quality of care people received.