Archived: Haringey Respite Service

Updated 1 September 2015

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014. We wanted to check if improvements had been made since the last inspection six months previously where we found the service to be inadequate.

This inspection took place on 27 June 2015 and was unannounced. The inspection was carried out by one inspector.

Before the inspection, we considered the previous inspection report from December 2014, the provider’s action plan for improving the service, contacts from people using the service and notifications from the provider over the last six months.

We inspected both flats, spoke with two staff and the manager and carried out pathway tracking (where we read a person’s care plan then checked to see if staff provided the care in accordance with the care plan). We observed two staff interacting with a person using the service and we reviewed records for staff training, recruitment and supervision. We also looked at care plans, risk assessments, medicines and health and safety records.

We spoke with two people who used the service and nine relatives of people who used the service to find out their views on the care provided.

Updated 1 September 2015

This unannounced inspection took place on 27 June 2015.

Haringey Respite Service provides accommodation and care to people living in Haringey who have a learning disability. All the people using the service are young adults who live with their families and come to Haringey Respite Service for respite care, to give them and their relatives a break or when their usual carer is unable to provide their care. The service is registered as a care home. Two people can use the service for respite care at any time as it consists of two adjacent one bedroom flats in the same block of flats. On the day of this inspection there was one person using the service.

The previous inspection was in December 2014. At that inspection we found the service to be inadequate, with five breaches of regulations. We had concerns about safety of the premises, unsafe management of people’s medicines and their money, lack of training and supervision of staff and a lack of monitoring of the service by the provider. At this inspection we found there had been improvements in all these areas in the last six months.

There was no registered manager in the home. A registered manager is a person who is 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. The current manager started work in the service in December 2014 and had recently applied to be registered with the Care Quality Commission. The manager has been receiving support from senior managers in the organisation to make improvements to the service.

There was a minimum of one member of staff on duty for each person using the service and two staff where people needed more support. Although there were sufficient numbers of staff on duty they did not always know people’s needs well. A lack of continuity of staff could have a negative impact on the quality of the experience for people staying at the service. Families told us that they wanted there to be a consistent staff team who knew their relative’s needs as they had not always had this. The provider told us three new staff who worked in their other services would be moving to work in this service in July 2015 to provide more consistency so that people using the service did not have to be supported by staff they did not know.

The environment was generally safe. We found that the maintenance of the flats had improved following our last inspection and the provider had assessed the safety risks and taken action to improve safety for people.

The provider had improved the management of people’s medicines but the information held about their medicines was not up to date in all cases.

Families of people who used the service told us that their family member was happy to go to the service and were well looked after. Families and people using the service thought there had been improvements since the last inspection. Their comments included; “They always ask what they don’t know,” “I think they are trying,” “they listen to suggestions” “they are improving what we think was not right,” “there is nothing to worry about” and “They are back on track.” They thought staff were caring and had no complaints about the service provided.

Some people using the service had complex needs and therefore had difficulty communicating their needs. Since the last inspection staff have been provided with training in learning disability and autistic spectrum conditions and most staff had received basic training in Makaton sign language which a number of people using the service used as their preferred method of communication. At times agency and bank staff worked alone with people using the service and some of these staff may not have the necessary knowledge to communicate with every person using the service.

The provider was monitoring the quality of the service and assessing risks regularly to improve the service so that people received safe and good quality care.

We found one breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 as the provider was not always providing a person centred service.

You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.