Archived: Holt Road

Updated 26 October 2015

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 was 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.

We undertook a focused inspection of Holt Road on 25 September 2015. This inspection was completed to check that improvements to meet legal requirements planned by the provider after our comprehensive inspection on 22 December 2014 had been made.

We inspected the service against five of the five questions we ask about services: is the service safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. This is because the service was not meeting legal requirements in relation to all these questions.

The inspection was undertaken by one inspector.

Before our inspection we reviewed the information we held about the home, this included the provider’s action plan, which set out the action they would take to meet legal requirements.

People who used the service were not able to communicate with us verbally. We observed care and support in communal areas of the premises. We spoke with three support workers and the provider’s area manager. We looked at four people’s care records and a range of records about people’s care and how the home was managed.

Updated 26 October 2015

We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection of this service on 22 December 2014. At which three breaches of legal requirements were found. These related to medicines management, risk assessments and record keeping.

We also made five recommendations which related to the storage of staffing records, applications made under the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005 and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS), communication between care staff and people who used the service, lack of privacy provided to people who used the service and lack of autism specific activities offered to people who used the service.

After the comprehensive inspection, the provider wrote to us to say what they would do to meet legal requirements in relation to the breaches.

We undertook a focused inspection on the 25 September 2015 to check that they had followed their plan and to confirm that they now met legal requirements.

This report only covers our findings in relation to this topic. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for ‘Holt Road on our website at www.cqc.org.uk’.

Holt Road is a care home providing personal care support and accommodation for up to five people with autism spectrum disorders, complex communication needs and challenging behaviours. At the time of our inspection, five people lived in the home.

The home did not have a registered manager; however an application had been submitted to the Care Quality Commission (CQC). 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.

At our focused inspection on the 25 September 2015, we found that the provider had followed their plan which they had told us would be completed by the 7 September 2015 and legal requirements had been met.

We found that the provider had made improvements in how medicines, in particular medicines prescribed when needed (PRN) were administered, stored and disposed of; this ensured that people could be confident that the management of medicines was safe.

Risks to people who used the service had been minimised, by providing detailed risk management plans and systems to ensure that knives and other hazards were stored safely.

Records in relation to staff and people who used the service were found to be of good standard, comprehensive and detailed and were stored appropriately and safely.

The provider had made appropriate application of DoLS to the supervisory authority; however the provider was still waiting for three out of five standard authorisations to be undertaken by the supervisory body.

We observed care staff communicating in various ways with people, by using British Sign Language (BSL), Makaton, and Picture Exchange Communications System (PECS) or by gestures and pointing. This showed us that people who used the service were comfortable with care staff and felt understood.

We observed people who used the service make use of all available space in the premises. Some people decided to use rooms privately while others chose the company of others such as staff or peers.

We observed people attending various in- house and community based activities according to their needs.