During an assessment under our new approach
Date of assessment: 2 February to 13 February 2026
The Gables Care Home is a residential home providing regulated activity to adults and people living with dementia and people with learning disabilities. The service is registered to provide care for up to 23 people. At the time of our inspection, 13 people were using the service. We assessed the service against, ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed autistic people and people with a learning disability respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. At the time of the inspection, the service was not supporting any autistic people or people with a learning disability, but the provider had regard to, ‘Right support, right care, right culture’. This inspection was carried out to follow up on the actions we had asked the provider to make following our last inspection in September 2024. The provider had made several improvements, including strengthening systems and processes to monitor and learn from accidents and incidents, and improving the environment. However, further work was still required to ensure effective oversight of people’s care plans and medicine management. Guidance for staff was not always sufficiently detailed, and changes made to the medicines system had not yet been fully embedded into day‑to‑day practice. Some issues we identified during this inspection had not been highlighted through the provider’s audit processes, meaning some risks and inconsistencies had not been recognised or addressed. People’s care plans did not always provide sufficient detail and guidance for staff to follow on how to manage people’s known risks. We raised this during our inspection, and the provider took immediate action to put this right. Medicines were not always safely managed, we identified one person’s medicine stock did not correspond with the records in place and a safe system for monitoring stock was not in place. Staff had not consistently recorded the outcome when PRN medicines (when required) were administered, including whether the medicine had been effective. Safeguarding systems were in place and effective in ensuring incidents were investigated and analysed. The provider detected and controlled potential risks in the environment well and health and safety checks were regularly completed. We found infection, prevention and control measures in place and followed by staff. The provider had made improvements to how they determined the staffing levels in the service, and we observed care to be provided in a timely manner to people. We found the provider had made improvements to people’s care plans and the information available to staff. Care plans now included important details about people’s life histories, likes and preferences. People and their relatives had opportunities to be involved in developing and reviewing their care plans. Staff demonstrated how they knew people well, we observed staff to be engaging with people and spending time listening to people. People, relatives and staff had multiple opportunities to share their views about the service. We reviewed the feedback the provider had gathered, and the actions taken in response. This information was clearly displayed within the service so everyone could see the improvements made, which included better communication and the introduction of additional evening activities. Arrangements were in place to enable people to access to services if they were unable to use these in the local community, these included a visiting podiatrist and visits from the local church. People were supported to plan for important life changes, so they could have enough time to make informed decisions about their future, including at the end of their life.