Archived: Linden House

Updated 15 July 2017

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked 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 8 June 2017 and was unannounced. This was a focused inspection looking at two domains – is the service safe and is the service well led?

The inspection was carried out by one inspector. Before the inspection we looked at all the information we held about this service including notifications and safeguarding alerts sent to us since the last inspection.

During the inspection we met two of the three people living in the home, observed their wellbeing and the interactions they had with staff. We contacted relatives of the three people and also a professional involved in their care to seek their views on the quality of service provided. We read the care files of the three people and carried out pathway tracking. This is where we read the risk assessments and care plans for people and checked if they were being carried out as planned. We met with the provider manager on behalf of the London Borough of Haringey. We met two team leaders and three support workers. We looked around the building checking cleanliness and safety and we looked at records. We looked at care records, medicines records for the three people, medicines audits, daily log books, fire and health and safety records, insurance and quality monitoring records. We also looked at the social stories and transition plans for two people who were getting ready to move to a new home. After the inspection the manager sent us further information on quality monitoring in the home and confirmation that he had taken action to improve the safety of the garden.

Updated 15 July 2017

This inspection took place on 8 June 2017 and was unannounced. At the last inspection in March 2016 there was one breach of legal requirements. This was because there were not enough staff on duty to enable people to go out whenever they wanted to. We found there had been an improvement in staffing levels since the last inspection though this had not resulted in people going out more regularly.

Linden House is registered to provide accommodation and care to six people who have a learning disability and autistic spectrum condition. At the time of this inspection there were three men living in the home. The provider planned to close the home and informed us that the three people would be moving on to new places by the end of July 2017.

There was no registered manager at Linden House at the time of this inspection. 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. The previous registered manager had left in January 2017 and there was an acting manager in place since then, who has applied for registration with the Care Quality Commission.

This was a time of uncertainty for people at Linden House due to the planned closure. People were moving to new places and two people had clear transition plans to help them move from one home to another. The third person did not have a written transition plan in place but had been assessed as needing a short transition period which would start in two weeks.

Regular health and safety checks took place and the senior staff carried out monthly audits of medicines, care files and the building to ensure the environment was safe and safe care provided. Due to the planned closure of the home there had been no deep cleaning or decoration so the environment was safe but not in as good condition as at the previous inspection. The garden was in a poor condition and had not been kept safe for people to use over the summer. The manager addressed this as soon as we raised this concern.

People were supported by an experienced staff team who knew them well. Their relatives said they were happy with the care provided.

Staff supported people to keep safe and helped them with their medicines, personal care and leisure activities. Staff supported people to go to health appointments and had supported one person during a hospital stay in the last year.

The manager and staff were supported by a provider manager from Haringey Learning Disability Partnership who supervised the manager, provided advice and support to staff and checked that the home was providing a good service.