23 March 2023
During an inspection looking at part of the service
About the service
Highdowns Residential Home is a residential care home providing personal care for up to 14 people with learning disabilities or autistic people. At the time of the inspection 14 people were living at the service. The accommodation is spread across several buildings and situated on farmland. At the time of the inspection 5 people were living in the main house, 4 people lived in an adjoining cottage and the remaining 5 people all had their own separate accommodation.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Right Support
Staff supported people to have choice and control and be independent.
People were supported by staff to pursue their interests.
Areas of the service were in need of updating to help ensure people’s surroundings were pleasant and supported their comfort and well-being. There were plans to make the necessary improvements in the near future.
Staff enabled people to access specialist health and social care support in the community.
Staff supported people with their medicines in a way that promoted their independence and achieved the best possible health outcome.
The policies and systems in the service had not consistently ensured staff supported people in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests. Staff had not consistently recorded when restrictions had been put in place to keep people safe. This meant opportunities to learn from those incidents and how they might be impacting on everyone living at the service were lost.
Right Care
Staff promoted equality and diversity in their support for people. They understood people’s diverse needs and provided appropriate support.
Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it.
The service had enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe.
Staff and people cooperated to assess risks people might face. Where appropriate, staff encouraged and enabled people to take positive risks.
Right Culture
People led meaningful lives because of the ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of the management and staff.
Training for staff to help ensure they were able to provide good quality care and support had not been refreshed regularly in line with the organisations policies.
The management team were supportive and knew people well.
Staff evaluated the quality of support provided to people, involving the person, their families and other professionals as appropriate.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was good (published 4 October 2019).
Why we inspected
This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.
We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.
Enforcement and Recommendations
We have identified breaches in relation to restrictive practices and staff training. Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.
We have made recommendations about recording information in relation to risks and support for management when new systems are introduced.
Follow up
We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.