We inspected Ransdale House on 29 October 2015 and 5 November 2015. The first day of the inspection was unannounced which meant that the staff and registered provider did not know that we would be visiting. We informed the registered provider of our visit on 5 November 2015.
Ransdale House is a large residential house situated in a residential area of Middlesbrough. The service provides care and support for six adults who have profound deafness or significant hearing loss and who have other disabilities or support needs. The service is close to all local amenities. The property had been adapted to incorporate assistive technology to enable people with hearing loss to live there safely and be as independent as possible.
The home had a registered manager in place. 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.
Staff understood the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act (2005) and the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards which meant they were working in a way that empowered people to make their own decisions and working in people’s best interests where they felt they lacked capacity. However they were not formally assessing people’s capacity or recording the decisions that had been made in people’s best interests.
We saw that staff had not received supervision on a regular basis. Staff also had not always been trained or completed refresher training; this meant staff’s ability to perform their role could be affected.
People told us that there were enough staff on duty to meet people’s needs.
We found that safe recruitment and selection procedures were in place. Records we were provided on the visit related to staff recruited in 2003 and 2007 and we therefore could not assess the current process. However the registered manager knew their responsibilities in relation to this for when they next recruit new staff. The registered manager understood they must ensure all documents relating to recruitment are kept at the service for inspection.
There were systems and processes in place to protect people from the risk of harm. Staff were able to tell us about different types of abuse and were aware of action they should take if abuse was suspected. Staff we spoke with were able to describe how they ensured the welfare of vulnerable people was protected through the organisation’s whistle blowing and safeguarding procedures.
Appropriate checks of the building and maintenance systems were undertaken to ensure health and safety. Only one safety check was out of date and this was rectified by the service immediately.
Risks to people’s safety had been assessed by staff and records of these assessments had been reviewed. Risk assessments had been personalised to each individual and covered areas such as ironing, cooking and behaviour that challenged. This enabled staff to have the guidance they needed to help people to remain safe.
Appropriate systems were in place for the management of medicines so that people received their medicines safely.
There were positive interactions between people and staff. We saw that staff treated people with dignity and respect. Staff were attentive, respectful, and patient and interacted well with people. Observation of the staff showed that they knew the people very well and could anticipate their needs. People told us that they were happy and felt very well cared for.
We saw that people were provided with a choice of healthy food and drinks which helped to ensure that their nutritional needs were met.
People were supported to maintain good health and had access to healthcare professionals and services. People were supported and encouraged to have regular health checks and were accompanied by staff to hospital appointments. We saw that people had hospital passports. The aim of a hospital passport is to assist people to provide hospital staff with important information they need to know about them and their health when they are admitted to hospital.
We saw people’s care plans were very person centred and written in a way to describe their care, and support needs. These were regularly evaluated, reviewed and updated. We saw evidence to demonstrate that people were involved in all aspects of their care plans.
People’s independence was encouraged and their hobbies and leisure interests were individually assessed. We saw that there was a plentiful supply of activities and outings and that people who used the service went on holidays. Staff encouraged and supported people to access activities within the community.
The registered provider had a system in place for responding to people’s concerns and complaints. We saw there was a keyworker system in place which helped to make sure people’s care and welfare needs were closely monitored. People said that they would talk to the registered manager or staff if they were unhappy or had any concerns.
There were effective systems in place to monitor and improve the quality of the service provided. We saw there were a range of audits carried out both by the registered manager and senior staff within the organisation. We saw where issues had been identified; action plans with agreed timescales were followed to address them promptly. We also saw the views of the people using the service were regularly sought and used to make changes.
We found breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we asked the registered provider to take at the end of this report.