Updated 6 May 2025
Date of Assessment: 13 May, 21 May and 5 June 2025.
Alternative House Care Home Blackburn is a service that can support up to 16 older people who may be living with dementia and/or a physical disability in one adapted building. At the time of the assessment 6 people were living at the service.
The assessment was carried out as we had received information of concern. The information was reviewed, and the decision was made to carry out an assessment. We assessed all the quality statements from the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led key questions.
The provider was previously in breach of legal regulations in relation to safe care and treatment, fit and proper persons employed, and good governance. We used this assessment to check improvements had been made in relation to fit and proper persons employed and safe care and treatment. We found that the provider remained in breach of the regulation regarding safe care and treatment as further action was required to achieve compliance.
As the provider had not employed any new staff since the last assessment, we were unable to assess if improvement had been made to recruitment practices to meet the requirements of fit and proper persons employed. Therefore, we will check this compliance against this quality statement at our next assessment.
At the last assessment we took enforcement action as we had concerns with good governance. The provider had a specific date for compliance to be reached and that date had not passed at the time of this assessment. We will carry out a further assessment when the compliance date has been reached to identify if the provider has made sufficient improvement or if a regulatory response is required to drive this.
At this assessment we identified a continued breach of regulation relating to safe care and treatment .Medicines were not always safely managed and some equipment had not been maintained in a timely way to ensure its safety.
We found some people’s care records contained conflicting and/or out of date information relating to their care needs. Documentation did not always contain detailed information to enable staff to respond to people’s specific care and health needs. Staff had received training but were not always able to explain what they had learnt. Some staff supervisions had lapsed but the provider had driven improvement by introducing a planner and supervisions had recommended. We received insufficient information to assess if a person was lawfully deprived of their liberty.
However, staffing was provided by a consistent team of staff who told us they could contact the management of the home if they needed support and management were not present. Staff who provided care were also responsible for cleaning, laundry, cooking and providing activities.
People were treated with kindness and compassion. Staff protected their privacy and dignity and treated them respectfully. People were supported to maintain relationships with family and friends. Staff were aware of their responsibilities to raise concerns with the safeguarding authorities if they felt people were at risk of harm or abuse and knew the different ways concerns could be raised.
The provider was working with health professionals and external stakeholders to drive improvements to the service. External stakeholders were visiting the service to offer guidance on people’s care needs and support assessments of people’s needs if this was required.
Documentation and people’s feedback evidenced people were referred to external health professionals if needed. People’s nutritional needs were assessed and monitored.
This service has been removed from special measures as the provider has made some improvements to areas of care and is no longer rated inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. However, further improvement was still required to ensure compliance with all regulations and improve the overall quality of care.
We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.