Link House

Updated 21 January 2025

Link House is a care home which supports people with learning disabilities and autistic people. The service is registered to accommodate up to 8 people. At the time of our assessment there were 8 people living at the service.

We carried out this assessment as we had identified multiple concerns in our previous inspection, and we needed to check to see if the provider had made improvements. The assessment took place between 27 January 2025 and 21 March 2024. We visited Link House on 27 and 28 January 2025. We looked at all the quality statements across the 5 key questions we use to inform our assessments: safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about the services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

We found the quality of care provided had improved in all areas and the provider was no longer in breach of any regulations. People received their medicines at the right time and risks to people had been identified and care was planned to keep people safe. There were enough trained and knowledgeable staff to meet people’s needs. Independence and choice were promoted for people and staff supported them to access healthcare advice and support. Effective systems were in place to monitor the quality of care provided and the manager was supportive and ensured learning was identified from incidents and improvements in care were made.

This service has been in Special Measures since 23 August 2024. The provider demonstrated improvements that have been made. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is no longer in Special Measures.

Updated 21 January 2025

The people living at the home were able to tell us about their care. In addition, we spoke with 2 relatives to gather their views on the service provided.

People liked living at the home and had good relationships with the staff. Relatives also confirmed that people were happy at the home and always looked forwards to going back when they had been home for a visit.

People told us the staff were good to them and that they had a key worker who supported each individual. They explained how they were able to have a say about who their key worker was as this was an important relationship for them. Relatives confirmed this good relationship.

People liked their rooms, and they had been decorated to reflect people’s taste.

People were supported to be active and to go into the local shops. A favourite with people was to go to the local garden centre for a drink and a piece of cake. Relatives told us people were also supported to go on holidays, and they were busy planning where to go this summer.

People’s independence was supported and encouraged. Where needed adaptions were made to increase people’s independence.

People had seen their care plans and were happy with them. They were supported to access healthcare and relatives were also happy to confirm they were kept up to date with people’s healthcare needs.