Smitham Downs Road

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence. At our last assessment we rated this key question requires improvement. At this assessment the rating has changed to good. This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this.

The provider was no longer in breach of regulation relating to need to consent.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The provider made sure people’s care was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them.

Staff undertook comprehensive assessments to identify people’s needs. These were regularly reviewed to ensure care and support continued to meet their needs.

The provider planned and delivered people’s care with them, including what was important and mattered to them. They did this in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards.

Staff received regular training to ensure they were aware of good practice guidance. The provider used recognised tools and frameworks that were in line with best practice including those recognised by the British Institute of Learning Disabilities (BILD).

The provider worked well across teams and services to support people. They made sure people only needed to tell their story once by sharing their assessment of needs when people moved between different services.

Staff worked well together to support each other and meet the needs of people using the service. The managers were liaising with other healthcare professionals involved in people’s care to gather information and ensure care records reflected the support people received across services. This supported continuity and consistency of care delivery.

The provider supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. Staff supported people to live healthier lives and where possible, reduce their future needs for care and support.

Staff worked with other healthcare professionals and followed advice given to enable people to live healthier lives. Staff were working with one person’s mental health team to support them to access more activities in the community, such as going to the gym. Another person was being supported by their social care team to look at more sensory activities.

Staff supported people to have a healthy balanced diet that was suitable for their needs. This included following the advice of dieticians to ensure people were supported to maintain a healthy weight. Where people required it, texture modified foods were provided to reduce the risk of choking.

The provider routinely monitored people’s care to continuously improve it. They ensured that outcomes were positive and consistent, and that they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves.

Staff supported people to achieve positive outcomes. One person had a keen interest to learn new topics, subjects and languages. The staff bought them an internet enabled Bluetooth device so they could research their interests. Staff supported people to be more independent and develop their skills, in relation to activities of daily living, mealtimes, shopping and simple financial transactions.

The provider told people about their rights around consent and respected these when delivering person-centred care.

Staff were aware of and adhered to the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Staff involved people in their care, offering choices and respecting people decisions. Where people did not have the capacity to consent to their care, staff held best interests’ decisions and liaised with those that had legal authorisation to make decisions on people’s behalf.

People can only be deprived of their liberty to receive care and treatment with appropriate legal authority. In care homes, this can be done through a procedure called the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS), which is part of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA). We checked whether the service was working within the principles of the MCA and how they managed DoLS within the service. We found that staff liaised with the local authority to ensure appropriate DoLS arrangements were in place to ensure people’s safety.

Improvements had been made to keep track of DoLS authorisations, ensure they were renewed in a timely manner and ensure notification to CQC as part of their registration requirements.