Archived: Huntercombe House - Peterlee

Updated 18 March 2016

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the registered provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection took place on 25 and 26 November 2015 and was unannounced.

The inspection team consisted of one adult social care inspector, a specialist advisor whose background was in nursing and occupational therapy and an expert by experience. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. In this inspection the expert by experience had a background in caring for a person with learning disabilities.

Before we visited the home we checked the information we held about this location and the registered provider, for example, inspection history, safeguarding notifications and complaints. No concerns had been raised since the last inspection, which took place in August 2014.

During our inspection we spoke with eight people who used the service and carried out observations of people who were unable to verbally communicate with us. We carried out observations of people using the service. We spoke with 12 staff including the registered manager, members of the multi-disciplinary team, senior care staff, care staff, catering and maintenance staff. We also spoke with a visitor to the home and two external professionals.

Updated 18 March 2016

This inspection took place on 25 and 26 November 2015 and was unannounced. This meant the registered provider and the registered manager did not know we were carrying out an inspection.

Huntercombe House in Peterlee is registered to provide accommodation for up to 21 adults with learning difficulties. The home is on two floors. Accommodation is provided for people either in individual bedrooms on the first floor or in bedsit type accommodation known to people as ‘flats’ on the ground floor. Each person’s accommodation has ensuite facilities. There are communal sitting rooms on both floors and a communal dining room on the ground floor.

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. Following our last inspection the acting manager had been appointed as the manager and had registered with the Care Quality Commission.

We found people were protected from abuse because staff knew what to do if they had any concerns.

The registered provider had a robust recruitment and selection procedure in place and carried out all relevant checks when they employed staff.

Checks were regularly carried out on the building to ensure people were safe. These checks included fire safety, water temperatures, extractor fans and window restrictors.

We observed two lunchtime sessions in the dining room and found the atmosphere was calm and conducive to eating well. Staff ate their meals with the people living in the home and chatted to people.

We observed staff supporting people in the home and found they were skilled in working with people and could distract people from adverse behaviours as well as anticipating their needs.

We found staff were supported by a multi-disciplinary team (MDT), Staff were able to learn about people’s conditions and how they could support them from the MDT who also arranged to bring in experts to support staff.

The registered provider had adapted the home environment to meet people’s individual needs. This included changing the use of a bedroom into a quiet space and adapting a bedroom into a sensory room to meet one person’s needs who felt more comfortable in an environment designed just for them.

We found staff in the home valued and respected people.

We found people received care and support from staff who knew and understood their history, likes, preferences, needs, hopes and goals.

The registered provider had in place a training kitchen to support people to gain skills to support their independence. We observed people cooking in the kitchen and they were enjoying the activity.

We found the service protected people from the risks of social isolation and loneliness and recognised the importance of social contact and friendships.

People were supported and encouraged to engage in activities in the home and in the local community. Since our last inspection we saw activity levels had increased.

Each person was supported using a personalised intervention plan formulated at a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meeting. Three or four people were reviewed each week and people were invited to attend their section of the meeting. The intervention plans were reviewed and updated at MDT meetings where issues or concerns about people were examined; plans were put in place to be carried out by named responsible persons with outcome measures identified.

We observed an easy rapport between staff and the registered manager, and service users and the registered manager.

Following research into ensuring people were cared for by smaller groups of staff the registered manager had arranged the service into pods. A pod consisted of three or four people who lived in the home with a group of approximately 11 staff around them. This prevented people being cared for by a large staff group and meant that staff needed to know about a small group of people in depth.

The service supported by the occupational therapist had developed an approach to promoting people’s well-being by providing a framework for staff and increasing people’s activity rates. The approach had been documented and recognised by the College of Occupational Therapists and was shared with other local service providers.

The service was the regional winner of the Great North East Care Awards, for their work in supporting a person with challenging behaviours and went on to be a finalist in the Great British Care Awards 2015. This meant the registered manager and the staff had received national recognition for their work.

The registered manager had led developmental sessions for the staff to look at their own values in the service and the service had created its own set of values building on those of the provider.

The registered provider had in place a quality audit system which measured the service. The registered manager was knowledgeable about the reasons behind what the service had scored and told us what they were doing to continuously improve the service.

The registered manager explained that in order to support staff, encourage joint and more effective working they had developed a number of keyworker roles around each person’s needs.