Last updated 25 January 2019
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 is 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 12 December 2018 and was unannounced. The inspection visit was carried out by one inspector and an expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. This inspection was in response to concerning information we had received about safeguarding incidents involving challenging behaviours that exposed people to potential harm. Due to these concerns, we brought the inspection date forward.

The provider had not been asked to complete a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report. Before the inspection we looked at previous inspection reports and notifications about important events that had taken place at the service, which the provider is required to tell us by law.

People who lived at the service had complex needs. We spoke in depth to five people who used the service about their experiences. Other people did not engage verbally, however, we gathered information about the care received by observing how people responded to staff when care was delivered. We spoke with four staff members which included the registered manager.

We looked at three people’s records to see how their care and treatment was planned and delivered. We reviewed four staff files to check staff were recruited safely and were trained to deliver the care and support people required. We also looked at records relating to the running of the service including staff training records, quality assurance audits, complaints, accidents and incident records.