This inspection took place on 8 December 2015 and was unannounced. At the last inspection in November 2013 we found the provider was meeting the regulations we looked at.
Woodhouse Hall provides care for up to 19 people who have a learning disability. At the time of the inspection, the service had a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) 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.
The service was divided into three distinct areas, and the inspection highlighted that people had a different experience which depended on where they lived within the service. Some people were happy with the service and we saw that they were comfortable in their surroundings. Others experienced a lack of consistency in how their care was delivered. Care plans were not followed, activity planners were not implemented and menus were not in place so we could not establish whether people received a nutritional and varied diet.
There were not enough, experienced staff to keep people safe and meet their needs. Some people received funding for one to one staff support but they did not always receive this.
Systems were not in place to ensure staff were appropriately trained and supervised.
The provider’s system to monitor and assess the quality of service provision was not effective. Actions that had been identified to improve the service were not always implemented. There was a lack of management and leadership and staff did not feel supported.
The overall rating for this provider is ‘Inadequate’. This means that it has been placed into ‘Special measures’ by CQC. The purpose of special measures is to:
• Ensure that providers found to be providing inadequate care significantly improve.
• Provide a framework within which we use our enforcement powers in response to inadequate care and work with, or signpost to, other organisations in the system to ensure improvements are made.
• Provide a clear timeframe within which providers must improve the quality of care they provide or we will seek to take further action, for example cancel their registration.
Services placed in special measures will be inspected again within six months. If insufficient improvements have been made such that there remains a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating the service. This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration within six months if they do not improve. The service will be kept under review and if needed could be escalated to urgent enforcement action. Where necessary, another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to vary the provider’s registration to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration.
We found a number of breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.