Housing 21 - Oakley Gardens

Updated 27 November 2019

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

The inspection team consisted of 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 service provides care and support to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. The accommodation is rented and is the occupant’s own home. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for extra care housing; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support service. The extra care service had 81 flats over three floors. At the time of inspection 63 people received personal care from the service.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection

The inspection was announced. We gave the service two days' notice. This was so the registered manager could let people know we would be visiting and arrange for us to speak with people. The inspection site visit activity started on 3 July 2019 and finished on 4th July 2019.

What we did before the inspection

We used the information we held about the service including notifications and the Provider Information Return (PIR) sent to us by the provider, to plan our inspection. A notification is information about events that by law the registered persons should tell us about. A PIR 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.

During the inspection-

We spoke with seventeen people who used the service and four relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with thirteen members of staff including the registered manager, care manager, estates manager and assistant chef. We received written feedback from two external professionals and a further two relatives of people. We reviewed six people’s care and medicine records. We sampled a range of records such as complaints, staff training, staff meeting minutes, resident meeting minutes, social activity records and the providers own audits and surveys containing people’s feedback.

After the inspection –

We sought and received further information from the registered manager to validate evidence found.

Updated 27 November 2019

About the service

Oakley gardens is an extra care service, where people live in their own flats in a purpose-built building. It was providing personal care to 62 people at the time of the inspection. People had a range of support needs such as younger and older adults and those living with a learning, physical or sensory disability,

People's experience of using this service:

People received outstanding care and support by a dedicated staff team that were committed, passionate and knowledgeable. People and their relatives were highly complementary about the care provided. They told us they experienced exceptionally good care which had positive impacts on their well-being and happiness. People described staff as exceptional friendly and supportive of them. Staff demonstrated strong caring values which were embedded in the service. There were many examples of compassionate care with staff using their own time to ensure people’s well-being.

People, their relatives and external professionals spoke highly about the service. People said they enjoyed a high level of social activity and community involvement and that their quality of life had improved.

Staff were knowledgeable and skilled and had been well supported with their training to understand and meet people’s needs. The registered manager was involved in several initiatives to improve people’s health and well-being and had strong links with organisations to gain and share skills and knowledge. This extended to providing knowledge and expertise to organisations in the wider community. There were strong links with health and social care services and people received a coordinated and consistent service. People were actively supported with their dietary needs and positive steps had been taken to promote people’s fluid intake. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this.

Staff had gone above and beyond to ensure people at the end of their life received compassionate care. Staff empathy and commitment to people was reflected in how they used their own time to sit and comfort people and support their wishes during this time.

People, staff and external professionals were extremely confident in the management of the service. Everyone described an open culture in which they felt listened to. The enthusiasm of the provider, registered manager and team to continuously improve the service was evident in their commitment and dedication. There were effective quality assurance processes which supported the maintenance of the high quality of care people received. Staff were valued, and their achievements were recognised and rewarded. Teamwork was evident with staff working closely together in delivering the values of the service. People were actively involved in the service and their feedback had led to improvements.

People felt safe within the service and risks to their personal safety had been well managed. Staff fully understood their safeguarding role and people had been provided with information on how to keep safe. There were safe processes for supporting people with their medicines. Staff followed infection control procedures to ensure people were protected from the risk of cross infection.

Rating at last inspection: The last rating for this service was Good (published 5 January 2017).

Why we inspected This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If any concerning information is received, we may inspect sooner.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk