Bembridge House

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. This is the first assessment for this service since it changed provider. This key question has been rated good. This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this.

This service scored 75 (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 made sure people’s care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them. Leaders ensured they completed full assessments of people’s needs before they moved to the service. The manager told us they had learnt from a previous experience where a person was placed in the service at short notice. The manager explained how they had informed the local authority they would not be able to accept people at short notice going forward. This was to enable them to fully assess the person’s suitability for the service, to ensure the safety of people living at the service and staff. At the time of our inspection, there was a person who was due to move into the service imminently. We were told the person had visited the service regularly, and staff had also visited the person at their current placement to learn how best to support them. The manager explained, “[Person’s relative] has called to feedback about how happy [person] is about the new service.”

The provider planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. They did this in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards. The service worked in line with the ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance for services supporting people with a learning disability or autistic people. The manager told us, “We meet the ‘Right support, right care, right culture guidance by tailoring what we do, being led by the people we support, being consistent, and having good access to the community.” People’s care and support were regularly reviewed with them and their families, which meant care was evidence based.

The provider worked well across teams and services to support people. They made sure people only needed to tell their story once by sharing their assessment of needs when people moved between different services. Staff told us they worked well together as a team. There were regular team meetings to support staff working effectively together. We observed staff communicating effectively to one another during our site visit. The service worked well with external services. We saw concerns were promptly escalated to relevant healthcare professionals where appropriate. Partners told us the service worked well with them. One partner said, “We have a good relationship with the staff at Bembridge. They know they can contact us if they have any concerns.”

The provider supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. Staff supported people to live healthier lives and where possible, reduce their future needs for care and support. People were supported to eat a balanced diet and were invited to take part in a regular exercise class which was adapted to each person’s needs. People’s healthcare needs were met.

The provider routinely monitored people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. They ensured that outcomes were positive and consistent, and that they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves. People’s health needs were monitored regularly. For example, if required, people were weighed regularly to ensure any weight loss or gain could be appropriately addressed. One partner said, “They have access to equipment for [blood pressure], [oxygen saturations], temperature and have often done these observations already if they are worried about a [person]. They weigh [people] regularly and have data to hand when we ask for it.” Relatives told us how people had improved since moving to the service. One relative told us, “[The service] is fantastic and she has improved massively”.

The provider told people about their rights around consent and respected these when delivering person-centred care and treatment. Staff understood the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and could describe the key parts of the legislation. We observed staff were able to apply this to their role. For example, a staff member asked a person if they were ready for their medicines before administering them. This demonstrated staff sought people’s consent before supporting them.

Leaders ensured decisions made for people were in their best interest, and followed processes outlined under the Mental Capacity Act (MCA). People had assessments to check their capacity to make relevant decisions, and where people were assessed to lack the capacity, best interest decision meetings were held which included relevant people. However, we found 2 assessments were not decision specific in line with best practice and legislation. We raised this with leaders who told us they would address this.