Fleetwood House

Fleetwood House is a residential care home providing care and accommodation for people with learning disabilities. It is registered to support up to eleven people, there were eleven people living at the home on the day of our inspection.

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

We have made recommendations about staff numbers and some medicine management.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.

The service was not able to demonstrate how they were meeting some of the underpinning principles of Right support, right care, right culture:

Right support

There were enough staff to keep people safe and occupied at home, however, regular staff shortages sometimes led to people not receiving support with going out and fulfilling activities out of the home. The provider was actively recruiting but had not been able to address long term recruitment needs.

Records of people’s support were not always up to date or completed accurately. Staff knew people well and were committed to supporting people’s choices and independence.The home environment was safe and welcoming, IPC and medicine administration was managed safely.

Right care

Risk assessments for health and emotional wellbeing did not always provide clear guidance to staff and were not always up to date. This placed people at risk of support errors or changes in needs being missed. However, people experienced support which was kind and caring, staff were well supported with training and development opportunities and were committed to person centred care. People were encouraged to make their rooms personalised and homely. People’s relatives saw their loved ones were happy with their support and treated with dignity and respect.

Right culture

Management oversight did not always ensure records and processes were followed, this sometimes prevented the professionals supporting people to have confidence that plans and actions were being carried out effectively.

Staff understood the values of person-centred and respectful care and felt supported by managers to provide this. People’s relatives felt managers and staff were approachable. People were relaxed and comfortable in the company of staff.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us by a new provider on 25 September 2020 and this is the first inspection since then. The last rating for the service under the previous provider was good, published on 1 April 2020.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection because the service had not been inspected since registering under a new provider.

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. This included checking the provider was meeting COVID-19 vaccination requirements.

We found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe, effective and well-led sections of this full report.

Enforcement

We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection. We will continue to monitor the service and will take further action if needed.

We have identified breaches in relation to how people's care needs were updated in their plans and the level of governance in place to monitor people's risks and safety.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

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.