The Mews

The Mews is a residential care home providing personal care to up to 8 people. The service provides support to people with a learning disability. At the time of our inspection there were 8 people using the service.

People’s experience of the service and what we found:

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 assessment and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Right Support

We found some minor concerns in relation to infection control; however, the provider took appropriate actions to ensure these concerns were rectified.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible. The service met the principles of the Mental Capacity Act and support was planned in people’s best interests.

Risks associated with people’s care and support were assessed, monitored and managed to ensure people were safe. People were supported by sufficient staff to meet their needs and ensure people’s preferences were adhered to. Staff knew people well. People received their medicines as prescribed.

People’s needs were assessed, and support was provided in line with what people wanted and needed. People received good outcomes and met their health, social and emotional needs.

Right Care

The management team and staff promoted person-centred care and ensured people’s privacy, dignity and human rights were upheld. Staff respected people and offered choices and supported them in making decisions.

We found healthcare professionals had been referred to appropriately and staff ensured their support and advice was implemented.

Right culture

The ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and care staff ensured people could lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives. Staff felt supported by the management team.

The overarching governance system included a series of audits which checked areas such as medication, infection control and the environment. Any issues raised were addressed in a timely way.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 27 October 2017).

Why we inspected

We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only. For those key question not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Mews on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow Up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

We inspected the home on 4 October 2017 and the visit was unannounced. The home was previously inspected in August 2015 when we rated it as ‘Good’. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for ‘The Mews’ on our website at www.cqc.org.uk’

The service had a registered manager in post at the time of our 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. There was also a general manager who was responsible for co-ordinating the daily support provided at the location.

All of the people we spoke with who lived at The Mews spoke positively about their experiences living at the home and the support they received.

Systems were in place to protect people from the risk of harm. Staff were knowledgeable about safeguarding people from abuse and protecting their rights. People were encouraged to be as independent as possible, while staff took into consideration their wishes, and any risks associated with supporting them. Support plans and risk assessments were robust and internal systems were in place to enable the management team to get a clear overview of potential risks to people, so these could be managed effectively.

People received inclusive, caring and mindful support from staff who knew them well and whose main aim was to support people to have the kind of life they wanted, while keeping them as safe as possible. People were supported by a core team of staff which was led by their keyworker.

Care files provided detailed up to date information about the areas people needed support in and reflected their preferences, these enabled staff to provide care and support that was tailored to their individual needs. People discussed their support plans regularly with their keyworker to make sure they were happy with the planned support.

People received their medications in a safe and timely way from staff who had been trained to carry out this role.

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

Staff were recruited robustly. They had undertaken a structured induction and essential training at the beginning of their employment. This had been followed by periodic refresher training and on-going support sessions.

People were fully involved in shopping for their chosen meals, which were prepared in their flat either by themselves or with assistance from staff.

People had access to social activities that were based around their interests and hobbies. They told us they enjoyed the activities and outings they took part in.

People had access to the registered provider’s complaint policy, which clearly told them how to raise concerns. This was also available in an easy to read version that used pictures to help people understand the process. No-one we spoke with raised any complaints or concerns.

There was a formal quality assurance process in place. This meant that the service was monitored to make sure good care was provided, and planned improvements and changes could be implemented in a timely manner.

People we spoke with told us they liked living at the service. They told us the staff were good and looked after them. One person told us, 'I like the staff and the managers I can talk to everyone.'

People expressed their views and were involved in making decisions about their care and treatment.

We found that the environment was well maintained in a clean and hygienic condition. We also found systems were in place to reduce the risk and spread of infection.

We found there was an effective recruitment and selection processes in place. Staff received appropriate professional development.

There was an effective system to regularly assess and monitor the quality of service; this had not always been followed. However we found that with the new management cover arrangements in place the systems were again being implemented and followed.