Birnbeck House - Care Home Learning Disabilities

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence.

At our last assessment we rated this key question requires improvement. At this assessment the rating has changed to good.

Some improvements had been made to ensure care and treatment reflected people’s personal preferences and most people were offered meaningful ways to spend their time.

The provider was previously in breach of the legal regulation in relation to person centred care. Improvements were found at this assessment and the provider was no longer in breach of this regulation.

This service scored 71 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The provider did not always make sure people’s care and treatment were effective because they did not always check and discuss people’s health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them.

Most people had not had a person-centred review, where any goals and outcomes the person wanted to work towards could be discussed. People’s goals were not recorded or where they were they had not been reviewed for some time.

People’s care plans provided an assessment of their needs and gave information about people’s health and communication. The service used a “person of the day” system. The aim of this process was to review people’s care and support and identify if people’s documentation was up to date. However, forms we reviewed were often not fully completed, and had not identified where people’s care documentation required updating.

Staff had not recorded all people’s health appointments. It was not always clear what the outcome of the health appointment had been, or if people were being supported in line with the health professional’s direction.

People who spent time in their bedrooms were observed to have limited interaction with staff, apart from support with personal care and at mealtimes. We heard mixed views from relatives about whether people were supported to take part in activities which were meaningful to them.

However, some improvements had been made since our last inspection. Where people were provided with 1 to 1 and 2 to 1 support hours to meet their needs, specific staff were now allocated to support them. We observed staff interacting with people, and people being supported to take part in group activities while spending time in a communal lounge. Some people were supported to go out into their local community.

The service improvement manager was monitoring activities being provided to people. They had created an activity folder, which provided information for staff about people’s preferences and how to provide them with meaningful activities. People’s daily notes were more detailed, recording choices people were given. However, people’s activities were still not being consistently recorded.

Staff supported people, using a person-centred approach to eat their meals. Their choices were respected and staff supported and encouraged people’s independence.

A health and social care professional told us, “I have seen genuine warmth from support workers towards the residents in their care which is lovely to see.”

Relatives told us they had been involved in discussions about people’s care, and they were kept updated on people’s needs when required.

We did not look at Delivering evidence-based care and treatment during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at How staff, teams and services work together during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Supporting people to live healthier lives during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Monitoring and improving outcomes during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.

We did not look at Consent to care and treatment during this assessment. The score for this quality statement is based on the previous rating for Effective.