The Meadows

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence. At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has changed to requires improvement. This meant the effectiveness of people’s care, treatment and support did not always achieve good outcomes or was inconsistent. The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to dignity and respect.

This service scored 58 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The provider did not always make sure people’s care and treatment were effective. They did not always check and discuss people’s health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them.People’s care plans were not always clear in describing the support people required and risk assessments had not been reviewed regularly by the service. The leadership team were open and transparent with us regarding issues they had identified within people’s care plans. During our assessment the provider was transitioning to a new care plan system. We saw evidence of improvements made to people’s care plans and risk assessment.

The provider did not always plan and deliver people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. For example, the kitchen was accessible to people with support from staff. People did not have free access to food as cupboards and fridges were padlocked. Snacks were not freely available to people. People had to request snacks from staff. We were advised this was due to one person’s support need. We raised our findings with the provider, who advised us they would review the food accessibility for people at the service.

The provider worked well across teams and services to support people. They made sure people only needed to tell their story once by sharing their assessment of needs when people moved between different services. We saw evidence that people were supported to access a variety of healthcare and social care professionals to support their needs. These included people receiving regular reviews at the surgery with their GP. The registered manager told us, “The GP understands people’s needs, and they come out when needed or people can go there.”

The provider supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. Staff supported people to live healthier lives and where possible, reduce their future needs for care and support.People at The Meadows were supported to access a local gym which specialises in supporting people with disabilities. People attending the gym was part of people’s activities plan. People at The Meadows told us they enjoy going to the gym and they got to go regularly.

The provider did not always routinely monitor people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. The service supports people with long term rehabilitation; people’s care plans did not evidence people’s long-term goals and how they would be supported. People told us what they wanted to achieve, a person told us, “I would really like to live on my own.”We found people’s care documentation was not always consistent with changes which meant people were at risk of receiving unsafe support. The provider and registered manager were improving systems with the implementation of a new care plan system, which requires embedding into practice.

The provider did not always tell people about their rights around consent and did not always respect their rights when delivering care and treatment.Whilst decision specific Mental Capacity Assessments (MCA) were in place, they lacked personalised detail to show how staff supported people to understand and make decisions. For example, there was no record of conversations held, communication aids or techniques used, or whether additional time had been given to consider decisions.The provider had applied to the local authority for Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) for people and kept a tracker of outcomes and application status.