Archived: Gordena Care Home

Gordena Care Home is a 'care home' that provides care and support for up to 9 people. All the people who lived at the home had a learning disability. There were 6 people living there at the time of the inspection.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.

People's experience of using this service and what we found

The home was able to demonstrate how they were meeting the underpinning principles of right support, right care, right culture.

Right Support:

People were supported in line with their individual needs. The staff supported people who were familiar with their needs. Staff took into account any risks when providing people's care and worked collaboratively with other health and social care agencies. Families were important contributors to people's care and had developed close relationships with the staff.

Right Care:

People could communicate with staff and understand information given to them. The staff supported people consistently. People's care, treatment and support plans reflected their range of needs and this promoted their wellbeing and enjoyment of life. People could take part in activities and pursue interests that were tailored to them. The home gave people opportunities to try new activities that enhanced and enriched their lives.

Right Culture:

The registered manager was also the provider. They have a strong visible presence within the home. They had created a culture of learning, opportunity and reflection. Staff were encouraged to speak out and contribute to the development of the home.

People were empowered to live their lives in line with their preferences and were given the opportunity to have new and repeated experiences. People were encouraged to have holidays supported by the staff. Some people were supported with volunteer roles within the community.

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was good (published 27 September 2017).

Why we inspected

We undertook this inspection as part of a random selection of services rated Good and Outstanding. We inspected the domains of Safe and Well led.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the home remains good based on the findings of this inspection.

We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for Gordena Care Home on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

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Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

Gordena Care Home provides accommodation, personal care and support for up to 9 people. There were nine people living in Gordena Care Home at the time of the inspection. People who live at the home have a learning disability. There were seven single bedrooms and one shared bedroom. The kitchen and dining room was situated on the second floor, which was accessed by stairs. A stair lift could be used by people if required to reach the first floor where the lounge was situated but not to the second floor. The registered manager assessed people in respect of their mobility prior to moving to the home and kept this under review due to the lay out of the building.

There was a registered manager in post. The registered manager was also one of the owners of the business. 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.

There were no breaches found during this inspection. However, improvements were needed to ensure people were safe. This included implementing the provider’s own action plan to ensure all staff completed a fire drill at frequent intervals and to ensure the recommendations made by a pharmacist had been fully actioned. This included checking staff competency in respect of the administration of medication and to ensure body maps in respect of where to apply topical creams were kept with the medicine administration record. This would ensure staff knew exactly where to apply the creams.

People were protected from the risk of abuse because there were clear procedures in place to recognise and respond to abuse and staff had been trained in how to follow the procedures. Systems were in place to ensure people were safe including risk management, checks on the environment and safe recruitment processes. People received their medicines safely.

People’s views were sought through care reviews, resident meetings and surveys. People’s views were acted upon. Systems were in place to ensure that complaints were responded to with action taken to improve the service provided.

People were involved in making decisions on how they wanted to be supported on a daily basis. Where decisions were more complex such as that relating to medical health then best interest meetings were held with the staff and other health professionals.

People had a care plan that clearly described how they wanted to be supported. People had opportunities to take part in activities both in the home and the local community. People were encouraged to be independent. Some people could access the community on their own whilst others required staff support. Some people managed their own finances. Other health and social care professionals were involved in the care of the people living at Gordena Care Home.

Staff were knowledgeable about the people they were supporting and spoke about them in a caring way. Staff had received suitable training for them to deliver safe and effective care. Staff told us they were supported in their role and met with the registered manager regularly to discuss their performance and any training needs.

The service was well led. The registered manager and the staff completed regular checks on the systems that were in operation in the home to ensure they were effective. The organisation’s values and philosophy were clearly explained to staff and there was a positive culture where people felt included, and their views were sought. There was an emphasis on Gordena Care Home being people’s own home.

People were provided with effective, caring and responsive service that was well led. The provider had a clear action plan already in place prior to the inspection to make improvements to the safe domain.