Nightingale House

About the service

Nightingale House accommodates up to 12 people. The service specialises in caring for children and young adults with complex health needs and acquired brain injury, including learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder and sensory impairment. Nightingale House provides eight long term beds and 4 short term beds. At the time of our visit there were seven people living at the service. In addition to this one person was at the service for respite. People using the service at the time of the inspection were 19 years of age and above.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

Right Support

Staff supported people with their medicines in a way which promoted their independence and achieved the best possible health outcome. Medicines were managed safely.

People had a choice about their living environment and were able to personalise their rooms. People’s rooms were very personalised, and people were able to decorate their room to reflect their interests and hobbies.

Staff enabled people to access specialist health and social care support in the community and people were supported to play an active role in maintaining their own health and wellbeing.

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

Right Care

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

People received kind and compassionate care. Staff protected and respected people’s privacy and dignity. Staff understood and responded to their individual needs.

Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it.

People could take part in activities and pursue interests that were tailored to them.

Right culture

People led inclusive and empowered lives because of the ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of the management and staff.

Staff turnover was improving, which supported people to receive consistent care from staff who knew them well. This meant people received compassionate and empowering care which was tailored to their needs.

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

This service was registered with us on 4 April 2019 and this is the first inspection.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.

We found the following examples of good practice.

When people had tested positive, they followed the most recent government guidance. People were supported to isolate according to their needs, some people were able to remain in their room, but one person had needed to have a separate part of the service which had its own living room. This worked well and meant that the person was kept safe and this minimised cross contamination.

Staff had been trained in infection prevention and control, food hygiene and COVID-19. They had also been trained in hand washing and donning and doffing personal protective equipment. Staff had been checked as to their competency in hand washing and donning and doffing PPE.

The service had been unable to offer their short-term respite care service for people. This was to reduce the risk for those receiving long term care during the pandemic.

A regular programme of testing for COVID-19 was in place for staff and people who lived in the service. This meant swift action could be taken if anyone received a positive test result. Staff had received their COVID-19 vaccines and booster.

We saw that cleaning took place throughout the day and touch points were regularly sanitised. We could see that this was evidenced on the cleaning schedule. Every Wednesday external cleaners came into the home to carry out a deep clean to minimise the risk of infection and cross contamination due to the vulnerable nature of those living at the service.

Policies, procedures and risk assessments related to COVID-19 were up to date which supported staff to keep people safe.