26 February & 13 March 2015
During a routine inspection
The inspection was announced and took place over two days on 26 February and 13 March 2015. We announced the inspection because we needed to arrange visits to people who used the service. The last inspection took place on the 20 August 2013, this was a routine inspection and we found the service was compliant with the regulations.
HF Trust- Bramley Gardens is registered to provide personal care to people in their own home and in supported living services. People who use the service have physical disabilities and/or learning disabilities. The service provides support to 41 people in 29 different properties.
The service has a registered manager in post. 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.
People told us they felt safe. The service had a robust mechanism in place for reporting and monitoring safeguarding concerns and the registered manager was able to provide a detailed update on the safeguarding concerns which were currently being investigated by the local authority. The staff we spoke to knew how to look out for signs of abuse and who to report concerns to. We confirmed staff had received safeguarding training.
We saw medicines were managed safely and people had up to date and individual risk assessments in place.
There were enough staff available to provide people with good support and to achieve their goals. Staff told us there were always enough staff available. Some relatives were concerned about staff turnover. The service had a robust and innovative recruitment process in place.
Staff told us they felt supported, we could see the service offered staff a good induction programme and opportunities for ongoing learning and career development. The service provided staff with regular effective supervision and everyone had an annual appraisal.
We saw people had detailed assessments of their ability to make their own decisions and when they were unable to make decisions for themselves the service had ensured the relevant people discussed what was in the person’s best interests. These decisions were recorded and clear to follow. Staff had received training on the Mental Capacity Act (2005).
People had individual plans in place to ensure they had support to maintain a healthy and balanced diet. The service had developed specific guidelines to support staff to implement this and had drawn on guidance from the National Health Service (NHS).
The service worked with health care professionals to ensure people were given the right support; people were supported to attend routine appointments to maintain their health.
We saw people had a good rapport with staff. Their support plans were person centred and gave you a picture of the person who needed support and how they would like this support to be provided. People and their families had been involved in developing and reviewing these.
All of the people we spoke with were positive about the variety and amount of activities available to them. Staff supported people to engage in meaningful activity based on the person’s interests and goals.
The registered manager was looking at how they could improve learning from complaints. The service had a robust system in place to audit the service and they had a strong ethos on getting feedback from people who used the service and their friends and families.