Archived: Wildacre

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.

Wildacre is a care home. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection. The care service has been developed and designed in line with the values that underpin the Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. These values include choice, promotion of independence and inclusion. People with learning disabilities and autism using the service can live as ordinary a life as any citizen.” Registering the Right Support CQC policy.

Wildacre is a residential care home for 10 people with learning disabilities and those living with dementia. There is one premises with two buildings; the larger main house, which is registered to accommodate seven adults with learning disabilities and the smaller house that is home to three people with learning disabilities who may have more physical needs. The main house has five first floor rooms and three ground floor rooms and several have separate living and seating areas. The smaller house has three specially adapted rooms to meet people’s more complex needs.

At our last inspection, we rated the service as good. At this second comprehensive inspection we found that the service had deteriorated and we have rated it overall as Requires Improvement.

There was a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission 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

Recruitment practices were not robust and had not been consistently followed to ensure staff employed were suitable for their role. We observed that essential employment checks for some staff had not been obtained. Effective quality checks had not carried out in order to check that the service was meeting people's needs and to ensure people were provided with a safe, quality service.

People continued to receive safe care. There were enough staff to provide care and support to people to meet their needs. People were consistently protected from the risk of harm and received their prescribed medicines safely. Staff followed infection control procedures to reduce the risks of spreading infection or illness.

Staff had access to the support, supervision, training and on-going professional development that they required to work effectively in their roles. People were supported to maintain good health and nutrition.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. Staff demonstrated their understanding of the Mental Capacity Act, 2005 (MCA) and they gained people's consent before providing personal care.

People developed positive relationships with the staff who were caring and treated people with respect, kindness and compassion. Staff made sure that people’s privacy, dignity and confidentiality was maintained at all times.

The service had a positive ethos and an open culture. The manager was a visible role model in the service. People had personalised plans of care in place to enable staff to provide consistent care and support in line with people’s personal preferences.

People had their diverse needs assessed and had personalised plans of care in place to enable staff to provide consistent care in line with people’s personal preferences. People knew how to raise a concern or make a complaint and the provider had implemented effective systems to manage any complaints that they may receive. Information was available in various formats to meet the communication needs of the individuals.

Staff felt valued and said they were well supported by the management. Staff were committed to the work they did and had good relationships with the people who lived at the service. People interacted in a relaxed way with staff, and enjoyed the time they spent with them.

Wildacre is a residential care home providing personal care for up to 10 people under the age of 65, with learning disabilities or dementia. The home is located in a rural setting on the outskirts of the village of Chelveston in Northamptonshire.

The service had a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission 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. There were 10 people using this service at the time of our inspection.

The recording of topical medicines and the auditing of Medication Administration Records (MAR); to identify if medicines had been signed by staff; had not been consistently completed.

People were protected from abuse and felt safe. Staff were knowledgeable about the risks of abuse and reporting procedures and there were risk management plans in place to promote and protect people’s safety. Appropriate numbers of staff were employed to meet people’s needs and safe and effective recruitment practices were followed.

The staff had completed training to make sure that the care provided to people was safe and effective to meet their needs. People’s consent to care and treatment was sought in line with current legislation. Where people’s liberty was deprived, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards [DoLS] applications had been approved by the statutory body. People were supported to eat and drink sufficient amounts to ensure their dietary needs were met. Staff supported people to attend healthcare appointments and liaised with their GP and other healthcare professionals as required.

People were looked after by staff that were kind, caring and compassionate. They were able to spend private time in quiet areas when they chose to. Staff made sure that people’s privacy and dignity was respected and maintained at all times.

People’s needs were assessed and care plans gave clear guidance on how people were to be supported. Care was personalised so that each person’s care reflected their preferences. Staff supported people to undertake a choice of leisure activities within the home and in the community. The service had an effective complaints procedure in place and this was in a suitable format for people using the service.

The service had an open, positive and welcoming culture. We saw that people and staff were encouraged to have their say about how the quality of services could be improved and they were positive about the leadership provided by the provider.

One relative we spoke with said about the home, "Our son is happy and well cared for. We continue to be happy and satisfied with his situation."

A relative made a comment, "We can come in at any time he is well looked after, the food is always fresh and very, very good. All the staff are excellent."

We asked a number of residents if they felt safe and whether staff explained risks and supported them in choices they had made. We received a number of replies such as 'Safe? I think so', 'Yeah' and 'Safe, yeah. No worries, no'

We found that Wildacre was well led providing people with safe, effective, compassionate care.

We found that this had been modernised and converted to a wet room and cocluded that Wildacre is now fully compliant with the regulations we inspected against.