- Care home
Stride East
Assessment report published 30 October 2026
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 23 September to 15 October 2026. Stride East is a residential care service providing accommodation and personal care for up to 29 people. At the time of the assessment, 9 people lived at the service. Since our last assessment the name of the service and the range of the people the service supports had changed. The service has moved from supporting older people to adults with needs relating to mental health and physical disabilities. We completed a comprehensive assessment of the service to review the previous rating.
At our last assessment in 2023, when the service was supporting older people, we rated the service as requires improvement and found breaches relating to safe care and treatment, staffing and governance. At this assessment, the service had improved and was no longer in breach of these regulations.
People felt safe and spoke positively about the care and support they received. Staff knew people well, treated them with kindness and respect, and promoted their independence.
Staff understood safeguarding responsibilities, felt able to raise concerns and were confident managers would act upon them. People were supported to access healthcare services. Staff worked with external professionals, and appropriate arrangements were in place around consent and safeguarding. Staff received training and supervision, and safe recruitment processes were followed. Staff worked well together and supported people to access healthcare, make choices and take part in daily activities. Staff described a positive and supportive working culture.
However, some improvement was needed in relation to the providers records and oversight. It was identified that some risk assessments and care plans did not contain enough information about peoples identified risks, health needs, routines and goals. Daily records did not always evidence what care staff provided, or the progress people made. Some medicines records also needed strengthening. Although a range of audits were completed, they had not identified all the shortfalls found during the assessment. Staff acted promptly in response to our feedback, and we found no evidence that these recording shortfalls had affected people’s care or impacted on their wellbeing.
Governance and oversight of the service was currently being provided by the wider provider team as there has been no registered manager in place for 18 months. However, there had been attempts to recruit to this position, these had not been successful. A registered manager ensures the day to day running of the service. While recruitment for a registered manager was ongoing the service was supported by a newly appointment deputy manager. Staff spoke positively about the deputy manager and the greater stability they had brought to the service. The provider was open to feedback provided during the assessment and improvement plans were in place to develop the service further.
People's experience of this service
People spoke positively about their experience of living at Stride East. They told us they felt safe and that staff treated them with kindness. A person said, “All day staff are brilliant. I feel secure here and I feel very safe.” Another person told us, “I have never felt unsafe while living at the home.”
People appeared relaxed and comfortable around staff, and we observed warm and respectful interactions. Staff were knowledgeable about people’s needs and people told us they were kind. A person said, “I do feel the staff are pleasant and look after me.”
People felt involved in decisions about their daily lives. They could choose where to spend their time, personalise their bedrooms and maintain relationships that were important to them. People could access the community and take part in activities that reflected their interests. Staff encouraged people to prepare food and develop their independence.
People knew how to raise concerns and felt able to approach staff and leaders. One person said they had never needed to complain but understood the complaints process. People reflected that the service was continuing to develop and that they had seen positive changes in the service across the past few months. A person said, “It’s fantastic here, the support from staff and how its changed, and how it’s getting better.”
The deputy manager and senior team leader were on site daily to support the service. People were positive about the impact they had had on the consistency of care and found them approachable and helpful. Overall, we received positive feedback about the support provided by staff. One person told us, “All the staff here have empathy and they genuinely do care.”