Hillside House

Updated 29 January 2022

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.

As part of CQC’s response to care homes with outbreaks of COVID-19, we are conducting reviews to ensure that the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practice is safe and that services are compliant with IPC measures. This was a targeted inspection looking at the IPC practices the provider has in place. We also asked the provider about any staffing pressures the service was experiencing and whether this was having an impact on the service.

This inspection took place on 18 January 2022 and was announced. We gave the service one-day notice of the inspection

Updated 29 January 2022

About the service

Hillside House is a residential care home providing personal care and support for up to eight people with a learning disability and/or mental health needs. Accommodation is provided over two floors in an adapted detached house located in the Leeds suburb of Headingley. At the time of the inspection four people were using the service.

The service has been developed and designed in line with the principles and values that underpin Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. This ensures that people who use the service can live as full a life as possible. The principles reflect the need for people with learning disabilities and/or autism to live meaningful lives that include control, choice, and independence. Overall people using the service receive planned and co-ordinated person-centred support that is appropriate and inclusive for them although some improvements were needed to care planning, evidencing the effectiveness of the service and staff training.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible although documentation needed improving to demonstrate that decisions had consistently been made in people’s best interests. We made a recommendation to ensure the service improves documentation relating to capacity assessments and best interests processes.

Overall the service applied the principles and values of Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. The layout of the building promoted people’s control and independence. More robust systems to set and evaluate people's goals had recently been introduced and this would help the service to robustly measure people’s progress and the effectiveness of the service over time.

Some improvements were needed to medicines management processes to ensure that medicines were consistently managed in a safe way. Overall, risks to people’s health and safety were assessed and appropriately mitigated. There were enough staff to ensure people received their required care and support. Staff were recruited safely.

People and relatives provided mixed feedback about the effectiveness of the service, we saw improvements were being made to help improve people’s experiences. Staff training was not consistently up-to-date, we saw a plan was in place to address this. People’s healthcare needs were assessed although in a number of cases more information was needed on how staff should support people’s healthcare needs.

Staff were kind and caring and treated people well. People had developed good relationships with staff, although staff turnover had been a barrier to the development of long-lasting relationships over time. People’s independence was promoted and a new system to robustly review people’s goals and objectives had been introduced.

People’s care needs were assessed and in most cases care plans were appropriate and person centred. A system was in place to log, investigate and respond to complaints. People received a range of activities and social opportunities and this was to be monitored more robustly going forward.

We saw improvements were being made by the new manager and they had introduced a new staff team who all felt well supported and were clear about their roles and responsibilities. Audits and checks were in place although some of these needed to be more robust to ensure a high performing service.

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

Rating at last inspection (and update)

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 31 July 2019). The service remains rated requires improvement. This service has been rated requires improvement for the last two consecutive inspections. At this inspection although improvements had been made in some areas, this was not consistently the case and the provider was still in breach of two regulations.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in relation to staff training and governance of the service at this inspection. Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will meet or hold a video-conference with the provider following this report being published to discuss how they will make changes to ensure they improve their rating to at least good. We will work with the local authority to monitor progress. We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.