Edenfield House

On this page

• Overview
• Learning culture
• Safe systems, pathways and transitions
• Safeguarding
• Involving people to manage risks
• Safe environments
• Safe and effective staffing
• Infection prevention and control
• Medicines optimisation

Safe – this means we looked for evidence that people were protected from abuse and avoidable harm. This is the first inspection for this newly registered service. This key question has been rated good. This meant people were safe and protected from avoidable harm.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service had a proactive and positive culture of safety, based on openness and honesty. They listened to concerns about safety and investigated and reported safety events. Lessons were learnt to continually identify and embed good practice. For example, we observed from looking at the incident and accident tracker, there had been a decrease in the number of incidents at the service. The manager explained how they had identified some areas for improvement and put these into practice with support from the staff team.

The service worked with people and healthcare partners to establish and maintain safe systems of care, in which safety was managed or monitored. They made sure there was continuity of care, including when people moved between different services. For example, people had initial assessments in place where the manager had spent time liaising with professionals from people’s previous placements to ensure there was accurate information recorded about their routines, likes and dislikes.

The service worked with people and healthcare partners to understand what being safe meant to them and the best way to achieve that. They concentrated on improving people’s lives while protecting their right to live in safety, free from bullying, harassment, abuse, discrimination, avoidable harm and neglect. The service shared concerns quickly and appropriately. Staff knew the correct action to take if someone was being harmed or abused. A staff member said “I would either report it to the manager or call safeguarding myself.” Where people had Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) in place, there was a process to ensure any conditions on their DoLS were being reviewed and managed. DoLS are used to ensure where a person is deprived of their liberty, this is in their best interests and there is proper legal authority to do so.

The service worked with people to understand and manage risks by thinking holistically. They provided care to meet people’s needs that was safe, supportive and enabled people to do the things that mattered to them. For example, 1 person told us how they enjoyed spending time with their family and how they engaged in community events, such as dance shows, which made them proud. They said “I would not have done any of this a few years ago."

The service detected and controlled potential risks in the care environment. They made sure equipment, facilities and technology supported the delivery of safe care. All routine maintenance checks were completed in and around the home to ensure it was safe for people to live in.

The service made sure there were enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff, who received effective support, supervision and development. They worked together well to provide safe care that met people’s individual needs. For example, additional staffing was always sourced to ensure people did not miss opportunities to engage in 1 to 1 time with staff in the community doing activities they enjoyed. Staff told us there was always enough of them on shift. One staff member said “The staff team are good, we all pull together like a family."

The service assessed and managed the risk of infection. They detected and controlled the risk of it spreading and shared concerns with appropriate agencies promptly. For example, infection control audits had been completed and there was a cleaning schedule in place, staff had undertaken training in health and safety and COSHH, which involves the safe management of cleaning substances. We observed good stores of personal protective equipment (PPE) available for staff to use.

The service made sure that medicines and treatments were safe and met people’s needs, capacities and preferences. They involved people in planning, including when changes happened. For example, we observed medicines were stored safely. There were PRN protocols in place. PRN is medicine which is given as and when required, for example to support with pain relief or when a person is expressing distress. The service was aware of STOMP (Stopping over medication of people with a learning disability and autistic people guidelines) and only ever used medication to deescalate people’s distress as a last resort.