Updated 13 January 2026
Date of Assessment: 26 January 2026 to 30 January 2026.
The Pines is a residential care home without nursing, providing personal care for up to 10 people living with learning disability and/or physical disability. There were nine people using the service at the time of our inspection. This assessment was prompted because the previous rating was due for review.
We assessed the service against the ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to judge whether the provider supported autistic people and people with a learning disability in ways that promoted dignity, equality, choice, independence and access to their local community. Right support: The model of care and setting maximises people’s choice, control and independence. Right care: Care is person centred and promotes people’s dignity, privacy and human rights. Right culture: Leaders’ and staff’s values, attitudes and behaviours ensure people lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives.
Autistic people and people with a learning disability are as entitled to live an ordinary life as any other citizen. We expect providers to guarantee people choice, dignity, independence and good access to local communities.
We found the provider did not always maintain effective oversight of people’s medicines. People’s medicines were not always administered in line with their prescriptions or best practice guidance. Medicines audits had not identified the concerns we found at this assessment.
People were not always sufficiently protected from the risk of harm. We found concerns relating to the safety of the environment and the management of people’s known risks. Staff were not always suitably trained or competent before undertaking tasks, placing people at potential risk. The provider had not demonstrated effective oversight of these areas.
The provider had detailed and regularly reviewed care plans in place, and people were supported to access their local community and healthcare professionals. Staff and healthcare professionals worked together to plan and review people’s care.
We identified breaches in relation to safe care and treatment, good governance, and a failure to meet the condition of registration requiring notifications of other incidents to be submitted. This meant parts of the service were not always safe and there was limited assurance about oversight and governance.
The provider had previously been in breach of regulations relating to consent; improvements were found at this assessment, and this regulation was no longer in breach. There was an increased risk that people could be harmed, and restrictive practices did not always take account of people’s person centred needs. We rated the service as requires improvement overall.
Following the inspection the provider told us they wanted to work positively with CQC and other external stakeholders in order to improve the service.