13 July 2016
During a routine inspection
Ashcroft provides accommodation and care for up to 14 women who need support with mental health. It is also staffed by women. It offers a service for people discharged from hospital who are not yet well enough to return home. It also offers respite care, which can include people who would otherwise need admission to hospital. There are sometimes people receiving support on a longer-term basis. At the time of our inspection, there were six people using the service.
There was a manager in post who completed registration with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in August 2015. A registered manager is a person who has registered with CQC 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.
People experienced a service that was safe. The manager acknowledged the need to review arrangements for storing temperature sensitive medicines if people using the service needed any of these. They also assured us they would look at how some medicines were recorded and audited to minimise the risk of errors. However, people's medicines were administered in a safe way and given to people as the prescriber intended. People received support from enough staff, who were properly recruited, which contributed to promoting people's safety. Staff understood the importance of reporting concerns when people may be at risk of harm or abuse and of supporting people to understand risks to their wellbeing.
People received a service that was effective. Staff were well supported and trained to meet people's needs. They undertook additional research to boost their knowledge and skills if they needed to and shared this with colleagues. Staff understood the importance of assisting people to make informed decisions about their care and seeking people's consent and agreement to the support they offered to people. Where people needed to seek advice about their health or wellbeing, staff supported them if required. They also encouraged people to make choices about what they ate and drank.
People received support from staff who were kind and acted with respect for people's privacy and dignity. People were involved in planning their care and making decisions about priorities they wished staff to support them with. Staff incorporated people's wishes, interests and preferences into the way they offered support to people so that this focused on the needs of each individual. There was a core of long standing, established and skilled staff who had come to know many of the people who used the service well but did not make assumptions that people's support needs were the same each time they used the service.
People were confident that any concerns or complaints they had would be listened to and addressed. The management team regularly asked people for their opinions about the quality of the service and support they received.
Staff were highly motivated and enthusiastic about their work. They understood the standard of care that they were expected to deliver. The management team had developed a culture within which staff and people using the service felt free to seek support if it was needed, to ask for advice and to make suggestions for change or improvement.