Archived: Lime Gardens

Updated 28 March 2018

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.

Our inspection site visit was on the 15 and 18 December 2017 and was unannounced. The inspection was conducted by an inspector and an expert-by-experience. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. The person we used had experience of people receiving support in their own home.

This service provides support to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. The accommodation is bought or rented, and is the occupant’s own home. People’s support and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for extra care housing; this inspection looked at people’s personal care service.

Not everyone living in Lime Gardens receives a regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also take into account any wider social care provided.

The provider completed a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We reviewed information we held about the service this included notifications received from the provider about deaths, accidents/incidents and safeguarding alerts, which they are required to send us by law.

We requested information about the service from the local authority. They have responsibility for funding and monitoring the quality of the service. The information we were provided with we used as part of the planning for this inspection.

We spoke to one person on the day of the site visit, five members of staff, the wellbeing nurse, the recently appointed registered manager and the area manager. The director of retirement and care living was also present for part of the site visit. We spoke to three people and two relatives over the telephone after the site visit. We looked at the care records for two people, the recruitment and training records for three members of staff and records used for the management of the service; for example, staff duty rotas, accident records and records used for auditing the quality of the service.

Updated 28 March 2018

The inspection took place on 15 and 18 December 2017 and was unannounced.

Lime Gardens is registered to provide personal care services to people in their own homes. This service provides support to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. The accommodation is bought or rented and is the occupant’s own home. People’s support and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for extra care housing; this inspection looked at people’s personal care service. On the day of the inspection, 47 people were receiving support.

Not everyone using Lime Gardens receives a regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.

There was a registered manager in post. 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.

At our last inspection we rated the service as requires improvement due to there not being enough permanent care staff to support people on a consistent basis, people’s right to request the gender of care staff supporting them not being respected and we found that people’s choices and wishes were limited. At this inspection we saw that improvements had been made to how people were supported.

Care staff were able to get support when needed to ensure they had the appropriate skills and knowledge. The provider had the necessary systems in place to adhere to the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act (2005).

People were supported safely and care staff knew the actions to take when people were at risk of harm. Where people were supported with their medicines this was done as they were prescribed. There was sufficient care staff available with the appropriate understanding of infection control to support people safely.

People were supported by kind and compassionate care staff who respected their independence, privacy and dignity. People were involved in deciding how care staff supported them.

Assessments and reviews took place which people were involved in. Where changes were needed to how people were supported the provider ensured they responded in a timely manner. People were able to share any concerns they had by way of the provider’s complaints process.

People were able to share their views by completing a provider questionnaire. Spot checks and audits were carried out to ensure people received good quality support.