29 June 2023
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Barleycombe is a residential care home providing accommodation and personal care support up to 11 people in one adapted building, with a separate flat that can accommodate 2 people. The service provides support to people with a learning disability and autistic people. At the time of our inspection there were 11 people using the service, 1 of these people were in hospital and due to return to Barleycombe the week after our visit.
People’s experience of using this 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 assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.
The service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting the underpinning principles of right support, right care, right culture.
Right Support:
Staff knew how people preferred to take their medicines to achieve best possible health outcomes. People were supported with their medicines and received them as required.
Staff supported people to take part in activities and participate in the community they lived in.
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.
Right Care:
Staff promoted people's individuality and diversity and their views about how they wanted to receive support were valued and listened to. People received kind and compassionate care from staff who were knowledgeable about people’s individual needs.
People’s care records provided guidance to staff on the level of support they wanted and how to keep people safe from abuse and avoidable harm.
Right Culture:
The management team had worked to make improvements since our last inspection, this included monitoring and oversight and improvements being undertaken in the environment, which were ongoing. This provided a positive impact on people’s wellbeing. The service was empowering and inclusive, with regard to people’s preferences and choice.
People were supported by enough staff who were recruited safely. Staff told us they enjoyed their work, received training relevant to their role and felt supported by the management team. People were relaxed around the staff and their independence was promoted and respected.
The service was visibly clean, and people’s relatives could visit when they wanted to.
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 requires improvement (published 13 January 2022) and there were breaches of regulation. 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.
At our last inspection we recommended that the provider assess the intensity and level of responsibility of hours worked by staff to ensure the safety and well-being of staff and people. At this inspection we found the provider had made improvements.
Why we inspected
We carried out an unannounced focused inspection of this service on 30 November 2021. Breaches of legal requirements were found in relation to safeguarding, safe care and treatment, governance and person-centred care. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve.
We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe and Well-led which contain those requirements.
For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last comprehensive inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.
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 and focused inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Barleycombe 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.