Housing 21 - Alice Bye Court

Updated 15 February 2022

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection Team

This inspection was carried out by one inspector.

Service and service type

Housing 21 Alice Bye Court provides care and support to people living in their own homes 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 care 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 and support provided by the service.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was announced. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 7 January 2022 and ended on 21 January 2022. We visited the location office at Housing 21 Alice Bye Court on 11 January 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We sought feedback from the local authority, safeguarding team and other health and social care professionals who work with the service. We checked information held by Companies House and the Information Commissioner’s Office. We checked for any online reviews and relevant social media, and we looked at the content of the provider’s website. We asked the registered manager to prepare some documents in advance of visiting the service’s office. We used this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with three people and one relative about their experience of care and support provided by the service. We spoke with the registered manager and five care staff. We reviewed a range of records, including five people’s care records and medicines administration records and four staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were also reviewed.

After the inspection

We spoke with two other people who used the service and the relatives of four other people. We spoke with the newly appointed assistant care manager and three other staff members. We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found and spoke with three community health and social care professionals who engage with the service. We requested and received further records, quality assurance documents, and were provided with a variety of additional evidence for consideration.

Updated 15 February 2022

About the service

Housing 21 Alice Bye Court is a service which provides support to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. People using the service lived in flats situated within one large building. At the time of this inspection 20 people were receiving personal care. Not everyone using the service receives personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. Whilst the service does not provide care and support to everyone living at Housing 21 Alice Bye Court, staff respond to all the residents if they activate their personal pendant alarms seeking assistance.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

The safe management of people’s prescribed medicines had significantly improved, particularly in relation to their high-risk and night- time medicines, which made people feel safe. The provider needed time to demonstrate the required improvements made had become embedded and sustained.

People experienced safe care, protected from avoidable harm by staff who had completed safeguarding training and knew how to recognise and report different types of abuse. Staff assessed risks to people, which were managed safely. Enough staff with the right mix of skills and knowledge, delivered care and support to meet people’s needs, in line with their risk assessments and support plans. Staff underwent a robust recruitment process which explored gaps in their employment history and conduct in previous care roles, to assure their suitability to support people living in their own homes. Staff demonstrated high standards of hygiene and cleanliness whilst delivering care and support.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

The management team led by example and promoted a person-centred culture where people and staff felt valued. The registered manager understood their responsibilities to inform people when things went wrong and the importance of conducting thorough investigations to identify lessons learnt to prevent reoccurrences. The registered manager effectively operated the provider’s governance framework to ensure robust to monitoring of care quality, safety and the experience of people within the service. Quality assurance was embedded within the culture and running of the service, to drive continuous improvement. Staff collaborated closely with community professionals to ensure people received appropriate care and treatment to meet their changing needs. Staff supported people to make choices and worked effectively with other partners, to ensure specialist or adaptive equipment was made available to enable improved care and support.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 5 March 2021) and there were breaches of regulation. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe section of this full report.

Why we inspected

We carried out an announced inspection of this service on 27 January 2021. Two breaches of legal requirements were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve safe care and treatment (Regulation 12) and good governance (Regulation 17).

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe and Well-Led, which contain those requirements.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last comprehensive inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Housing 21 Alice Bye Court on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.