Binley Woods

Updated 25 April 2018

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check 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 fully comprehensive inspection took place on 8 March 2018. The inspection was unannounced and was conducted by one inspector.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. We looked at information received from local authority commissioners and statutory notifications sent to us by the service. A statutory notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send to us by law. Commissioners are people who work to find appropriate care and support services which are paid for by the local authority.

We reviewed the information in the provider’s information return (PIR). This is a form we asked the provider to send to us before we visited. The PIR asked the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We reviewed the information as part of our evidence when conducting our inspection, and found the PIR reflected what we found.

During our visit we spoke with three people who used the service. We spoke with two relatives via the telephone. We also spoke with the registered manager, the deputy manager, three care staff and the provider. We observed care and support being delivered in communal areas and we observed how people were supported to eat and drink at lunch time.

We reviewed three people’s care records to see how their care and support was planned and delivered. We looked at other records related to people’s care and how the service operated, including medicine records, staff recruitment records, the provider’s quality assurance audits and records of complaints.

Updated 25 April 2018

This inspection took place on 8 March 2018, and was unannounced.

Binley Woods is a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. CQC regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection. The home is split over two floors comprising communal areas and a kitchen. The service is registered to provide care and accommodation for to up to five people with mental health difficulties. At the time of our inspection there were five people living in the home.

At our last inspection we rated the service as Good. At this inspection we found the evidence continued to support the rating of good and there was no evidence or information from our inspection and ongoing monitoring that demonstrated serious risks or concerns. This inspection report is written in a shorter format because our overall rating of the service has not changed since our last inspection.

A new registered manager was in post. 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 registered manager took over from the previous manager in June 2017.

People felt safe with the staff who supported them, and we saw people were comfortable with staff. Staff received training in how to safeguard people from abuse and understood what action they should take in order to protect people from abuse. Risks to people’s safety were identified and minimised to keep people safe.

People were supported with their medicines by staff who were trained and assessed as competent to give medicines safely. Staff recorded medicines administration according to the provider’s policy and procedure, and checks were in place to ensure medicines were managed safely.

There were enough staff to meet people’s needs effectively. The provider conducted pre-employment checks prior to staff starting work, to ensure their suitability to support people. Staff told us they had not been able to work until these checks had been completed.

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 supported this practice.

People and relatives told us staff were respectful and treated people with dignity. We observed this during interactions between people. The ethos of the home was focussed on supporting people to achieve as much as possible and moving them towards more independent living.

People were supported to make choices about their day to day lives. For example, they were supported to maintain any activities, interests and relationships that were important to them.

People had access to health care professionals when needed and care records showed support provided was in line with what had been recommended. The provider’s own clinical team worked effectively with community health professionals, and plans were in place to further improve this.

People’s care records were written in a way which helped staff to deliver personalised care and gave staff information about people’s communication, their likes, dislikes and preferences. Plans were in place to change all care plans to a new format which would provider even more personalised information. People and relatives were involved in how their care and support was delivered.

People and relatives felt able to raise any concerns with the registered manager. They felt these would be listened to and responded to effectively and in a timely way. Staff told us the registered manager was approachable and effective in running the home and making positive changes. There were systems in place to monitor the quality of the support provided, through checks made both by the registered manager and also the provider.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.