Archived: Ferndale

Updated 12 July 2016

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection took place on 4, 6, 7 and 8 April 2016 and was unannounced. The inspection team consisted of four inspectors. As part of the inspection we reviewed the information we held about the service. We looked at statutory notifications sent by the provider. A statutory notification contains information about important events which the provider is required to send to us by law. We sought information and views from the local authority and clinical commissioning group. We also reviewed information that had been sent to us by the public. We used this information to help us plan our inspection.

During the inspection we spent time with all 11 people who lived at the service. Some people living at the service had complex needs and were unable to share their views with us about their care. To help us understand the experiences of people we spent time observing care and interactions between people and staff members. This helped us to understand the experience of people who could not talk with us. We spoke with nine relatives, the two providers, the registered manager, the deputy manager, acting deputy manager and nine members of staff; including care staff, the cook and the maintenance person. We also spoke with health and social care professionals. We reviewed records relating to people’s medicines, four people’s care records and records relating to the management of the service; including recruitment records, complaints and quality assurance. We carried out observations across the service to better understand the quality of care people received.

Updated 12 July 2016

This inspection took place on 04, 06, 07 and 08 April 2016 and was unannounced. At the last inspection completed in May 2015 the provider was meeting all of the legal requirements that we looked at.

Ferndale is a residential home that provides accommodation and personal care for up to 13 people with autism and learning disabilities. At the time of our inspection there were 11 people living at the service. There was a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

We found widespread and significant shortfalls in the service.

People were not protected from harm due to managers not recognising and reporting safeguarding incidents to the local authority. Risks to people were not always identified, recorded and known to staff; therefore risks were not always managed and reduced in order to keep people safe. Medicines were not always managed safely.

People were not always protected due to unsafe recruitment practices. People’s needs were not always considered when training staff members. Staff were given access to training but had not been trained in important areas such as risk or autism awareness. Staff member’s competency was not checked to ensure they were effective in their roles.

People were enabled to provide consent to day to day tasks and activities. Where people did not have the ability to provide consent we found that decisions were not always made in line with the Mental Capacity Act 2005. People were supported to have sufficient quantities of food and drink. People’s day to day health needs were met and they were supported to see healthcare professionals when required. Where more specialist support was needed managers were not always proactive in seeking this support.

People were not always supported in a caring, dignified and respectful way. The staff team listened to people’s basic choices and preferences and gave day to day options for people to choose from. The provider had not considered ways to involve people in their care plans and advocacy was not always made available to people. People’s care and support plans did not always reflect their needs and preferences. People could access a structured activities programme although minimal work had been done to develop individualised programmes of activity for people based on their own preferences.

People were not supported by a strong management team who could identify and manage risks within the service to keep them safe. The provider had not developed effective quality assurance systems to ensure that issues within the service were identified and improvements were made where required.

We found that the provider was not meeting all of the requirements of the law. We found multiple breaches in regulations. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.

The overall rating for this service was 'Inadequate' and the service was therefore placed into 'Special measures'. Services in special measures are kept under review. Following the inspection we took urgent action to cancel the registration of the provider. At the time of the publication of this report, our action had been completed and there were no people living at the service.