Background to this inspection
Updated
16 May 2019
The inspection:
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team:
Our inspection was undertaken by one inspector.
Service and service type:
Wildacre is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.
The service had a manager registered with CQC who was also the provider. This means the provider is legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
Notice of inspection:
This was an unannounced inspection.
What we did:
We carried out the inspection site visit on 9 April 2019 and contacted families to find out their experience of the service on 15 April 2019.
We reviewed the information we had about the service which included any notifications that had been sent to us. A notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law.
We contacted the health and social care commissioners who monitor the care and support the people receive.
The provider did not complete the required Provider Information Return. This is information providers must send us to give us key information about the service, what it does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account in making our judgements in this report.
We spoke with five people who used the service, two support staff, an assistant manager and the provider. We also spoke with one relative.
We reviewed three people’s care files, looked at three staff files and reviewed records relating to the management of medicines, complaints and policies in place to manage the service.
After the site visit we asked the registered manager for details of the planned programme of training for staff, which they supplied.
Updated
16 May 2019
About the service:
Wildacre provided personal care and support to up to eight people with learning disabilities. There were eight people living there at the time of the inspection. The accommodation is in a rural village in Northamptonshire.
People’s experience of using this service:
The service worked within the principles and values that underpin Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. This ensured that people could 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 over their own lives, choice, and independence.
Improvements were required to ensure that the systems in place to monitor the quality of the service and drive improvements were consistently maintained.
People had detailed personalised plans of care in place to enable staff to provide consistent care and support in line with people’s personal preferences, however, these needed to be kept up to date.
The staff were friendly, passionate about their work and caring; they treated people with respect, kindness, dignity and compassion.
People were supported to maintain good health and nutrition and live fulfilled lives. They were protected from the risk of harm and received their prescribed medicines safely.
Staff were appropriately recruited and there were enough staff to provide care and support to people to meet their needs. They had access to the support, supervision and training that they required to work effectively in their roles.
Staff knew their responsibilities as defined by the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA 2005). The provider was aware of how to make referrals if people lacked capacity to consent to aspects of their care and support and were being deprived of their liberty.
Information was provided to people in an accessible format to enable them to make decisions about their care and support.
People knew how to raise a concern or make a complaint and the provider had implemented effective systems to manage any complaints received.
The service had a positive ethos and an open culture. The provider was approachable, understood the needs of the people in the home, and listened to staff and relatives.
The service met the characteristics for a rating of ‘good’ in four of the five key questions we inspected and rating of ‘requires improvement’ in one. Therefore, our overall rating for the service after this inspection was ‘good’.
More information is in the full report
Rating at last inspection: Requires Improvement (published 13 April 2018)
Why we inspected: This was a scheduled inspection.
Follow up: We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people receive safe, compassionate, high quality care. Further inspections will be planned.