- Care home
Oakwood Acquired Brain Injury Rehabilitation Service
Report from 25 May 2025 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Onsite visits to this service were completed on 19, 24 and 25 June 2025.
Oakwood Acquired Brain Injury Service provides residential care for up to 13 people, as well as providing personal care in the community. At the time of our visit there were 12 people living at the service and a further person receiving personal care in the community. The service provides care and support for people who are recovering from an acquired brain injury. Independent living is promoted within the service, with people having access to cooking/laundry facilities in their bedrooms to develop their skills in this area.
We found two breaches of legal regulation relating to the safe management of medicines and systems for oversight to ensure the service was well run.
People’s experience of feeling safe varied according to the staff on duty and families had concerns in relation to the use of agency staff. Risks were not always effectively managed and it was not clear that lessons were learnt when shortfalls had been noted. We identified a breach of regulation in regard of how people were supported to take their medicines as we could not be certain all staff had appropriate training and checks of competency to ensure they were able to administer medicines safely, or that accurate records were being maintained. Not all staff had completed the required training, and work was ongoing to improve training compliance. Improvements were needed to the premises to ensure the safety and comfort of the environment for the people living at Oakwood.
People’s needs were assessed and people were supported to access a range of therapies including physiotherapy and speech and language therapy where needed. However, healthy diets were not always promoted, and there was limited evidence that therapeutic interventions were being consistently delivered by the care team following recommendation by the therapy team. People told us instances of poor organisation meant some external appointments had been missed. Where people lacked capacity, appropriate assessments and authorisations were sought. People were asked for consent before care was delivered.
We observed kind and caring interactions between staff and people and people felt well cared for by permanent members of the staff team. People’s independence was being supported with the input of the therapy team. Staff felt supported and were generally happy in their roles.
People were supported to plan for the future and move onto independent living. Staff supported people to access the services needed and processes for ensuring continuity of care were in place through the use of a hospital passport system. People’s care records were not always personalised, and action was in the process of being taken by the provider to address this matter.
An interim manager was in post but there had not been a manager registered with CQC for some time. There was inconsistent evidence of oversight with gaps in how some processes were completed. Many of these processes had been reintroduced since the interim manager and deputy manager had come into post. The provider had an action plan but limited progress had been made. Further work was needed to ensure action that was deemed completed had embedded. The interim manager was responsive to feedback and took immediate action where this was needed.
People's experience of this service
People generally spoke positively about the care they received, although there were concerns in relation to the use of agency staff and how this impacted upon people. One relative commented, “The permanent staff know [family member] yes. There is quite a lot of agency [staff]. They are not doing [family members] daily routine; [family member] is telling them what to do.”
People were supported to access onsite therapies but recommendations were not followed up in how care was delivered by the care team, meaning independence was not always promoted.
Family members raised concerns about communication with one relative commenting, “Does he feel safe. I think so most of the time. The difficulty is over communication; they never communicate with us.”
People told us they were supported to access health care services where needed, and we observed external professionals visiting the service. However, relatives raised some concerns about how people were supported with external appointments and felt that the service could be more organised in how they support people.
We observed people looked clean and well presented, and there were kind interactions between people and staff. Relatives raised concerns about the provision of healthy meals and we found it was not always evident that people were supported to eat a healthy and balanced diet or that staff had the right skills to support people with preparing healthy meals.