Archived: Stable House Colchester

Updated 6 July 2016

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.

This inspection took place on the 25 May 2016 and was announced. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides a supported living service and we needed to be sure that someone would be in when we visited.

This inspection was carried out by one inspector.

Prior to our inspection we reviewed information we held about the service, in particular notifications about incidents, accidents and safeguarding information. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law.

We spoke with three people who used the service and following our visit spoke to four relatives on the telephone. We interviewed four staff, the supported living manager and the registered manager.

We reviewed two people’s care records including their support plans, staff recruitment files, staff training and records relating to the quality and safety monitoring of the service.

Updated 6 July 2016

This inspection took place on the 25 May 2016 and was announced.

Stable House, Colchester is registered to provide personal care for people with a learning disability. On the day of our inspection there were six people using this service, all living within the same housing complex, in separate flats within the one location based in Ipswich.

It was evident during our inspection that the service was not being managed on a day to day basis from the registered location Stable House in Colchester but was being run from Norwich Road in Ipswich where the manager and staff were based. This was also the location which was the point of contact for people who used the service. Following our inspection we asked the provider to explain why the Norwich Road should not be registered as a separate location to Stable House Colchester.

There was a registered manager. 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.

Relationships between staff and people were relaxed and supportive of their needs wishes and preferences. People who used the service were actively involved in making decisions about their daily care and support. Staff sought the consent of people in the planning and delivery of their care. Staff promoted and supported people’s independence and enabled them to have access to the local community.

Where risks to people had been identified there were plans in place to manager them effectively. Staff understood the risks to people’s health, welfare and safety and followed guidance to support people appropriately.

The suitability of staff to form caring, supportive relationships with people was assessed as part of the provider’s recruitment process. People who used the service had been involved in the recruitment and selection of staff. People could be assured action had been taken to check that newly appointed staff had the necessary skills and had been assessed as safe to provide their care and support. However, on occasions people did not always receive their one to one care support as assessed to meet their needs due to shortages of staff available.

People received care that was respectful of their needs for dignity and their privacy was respected.

People were protected from social isolation because they were supported and their relatives told us that people were supported to follow their own hobbies, interests and received support with opportunities to access further education at college, day services and community activities.

People had a support plan which reflected their personal choices and preferences regarding how they wished to live their daily lives. Support plans were contained comprehensive information but were bulky with out of date documents and were not always recorded in a personalised format that the people who used the service could understand.

There was little evidence of any formal systems where the views of people were regularly sought . Tenant meeting and care reviews were sporadic. This meant that further work was needed to ensure there were systems to support people to air their views and used in planning for continuous improvement of the service.

The provider did not operate effectively an accessible system for identifying receiving, handling and responding to complaints.

We were reassured that action was being taken to respond to issues of disunity amongst staff and action planned to improve the culture of the service. This included planning in place to work towards resolution of the cultural issues that had been evident for some time.

During this inspection we identified a number of breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of this report.