28 April 2023
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Carlton Avenue is a residential care home which is registered to provide accommodation and personal care for a maximum of 9 people. The care home provides support to people with profound and multiple learning disabilities, all of whom have mobility needs. At the time of the inspection there were 7 people living in Carlton Avenue.
We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Right 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 service gave people care and support in a safe, clean, well equipped, well- furnished and well-maintained environment that met their sensory and physical needs. Staff focussed on people’s strengths and promoted what they could do, so people had a fulfilling and meaningful everyday life. People had choice about their living environment and were able to personalise their rooms.
Right Care:
People received kind and compassionate care. Staff protected and respected people’s privacy and dignity. They understood and responded to their individual needs. Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. The service worked well with other agencies to do so. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it.
People had individual ways of communicating, using body language, sounds, Makaton (a form of sign language) and pictures and could interact comfortably with staff and others involved in their care and support because staff had the necessary skills to understand them.
Right Culture:
People lead inclusive and empowered lives because of the ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of the management and staff.
People were supported by staff who understood best practice in relation to the wide range of strengths, impairments or sensitivities people with a learning disability may have. This meant they received compassionate and empowering care that was tailored to their needs.
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 13 July 2022) 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.
At our last inspection we recommended that the provider consider current guidance on ensuring there is personalised information about the administration of people’s PRN medicines, so all staff had the knowledge and understanding to consistently and effectively administer these types of medicines. At this inspection we found the provider had acted on the recommendations and they had made improvements.
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.
For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.