Archived: Wallace Crescent

Updated 15 February 2022

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.

As part of CQC’s response to care homes with outbreaks of COVID-19, we are conducting reviews to ensure that the Infection Prevention and Control practice was safe and the service was compliant with IPC measures. This was a targeted inspection looking at the IPC practices the provider has in place.

This inspection took place on 20 April 2021 and was unannounced.

Updated 15 February 2022

About the service

Wallace Crescent is a residential care home providing personal care to eight people with learning disabilities and mental health support needs at the time of the inspection. The service can support up to eight people in self-contained single-occupancy flats within the home, with communal spaces also available for people to use.

The service has been developed and designed in line with the principles and values that underpin Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. This ensures that people who use the service can live as full a life as possible and achieve the best possible outcomes. The principles reflect the need for people with learning disabilities and/or autism to live meaningful lives that include control, choice, and independence. People using the service receive planned and co-ordinated person-centred support that is appropriate and inclusive for them.

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

People benefited from being cared for by staff who were exceptionally well trained and supported to provide effective care that led to positive outcomes for people. The service worked alongside specialists and healthcare professionals to assess people’s needs holistically and deliver positive outcomes. This included the use of technology to gather data to help staff understand people’s needs better. People had support to plan their own personal menus according to their needs, tastes and preferences. Staff understood people’s health needs and promoted good outcomes and quality of life for people. The home environment was set up in an innovative way that promoted people’s independence and reflected their individual needs and preferences.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

People received person-centred care that focused on what was most important to them and took into account their diverse needs. Care plans were in different formats to suit people's needs, including innovative and unique formats that were particularly meaningful to people. People were strongly involved in reviewing care plans regularly to keep them up to date. Staff supported people to set and achieve goals for themselves. People had opportunities to take part in a variety of activities that were meaningful to them and tailored to their interests and abilities. Staff supported people to maintain relationships that were important to them. The provider dealt with people’s complaints in a thorough, prompt and fair way.

There were systems and processes to protect people from the risk of abuse. The provider managed risks in a person-centred way to keep people safe from harm while restricting their freedom as little as possible. When things did go wrong, there were systems to learn from this and prevent incidents from happening again. There were regular checks to make sure the environment was safe and infection control procedures were followed. There were enough staff and safer recruitment processes to ensure the staff were suitable to care for people. Medicines were managed appropriately.

People received care and support from staff who were kind, empathetic and respectful. Staff took the time to get to know people well and understand their preferences and wishes. The service strongly promoted equality and diversity and we saw many examples of this. Staff used different methods to support people to express their views and make choices about their care, depending on how people communicated and what worked best for them. People’s care promoted their privacy, dignity and independence.

People benefited from a service with strong management and leadership, with an open, inclusive and person-centred culture. The provider consulted people, their relatives and staff as part of their ongoing programme of assessing the quality of the service and making improvements. There was a robust governance system with good oversight from the provider to make sure the service continued to provide a high standard of care to people. The provider worked well in partnership with others.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 2 June 2017).

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

Follow up

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