We carried out a review of the data available to us about Avondown House on 6 July 2023. We have not found evidence that we need to carry out an inspection or reassess our rating at this stage.
This could change at any time if we receive new information. We will continue to monitor data about this service.
If you have concerns about Avondown House, you can give feedback on this service.
Avondown House is an extra care housing scheme providing the regulated activity personal care to people. The service can provide support to people with dementia, learning disabilities and autistic people, people with a sensory impairment or physical disability and older people. At the time of our inspection there were 139 people using the service.
Avondown House provides support to people who live across five locations. People across the locations have their own tenancy agreements and live in self-contained accommodation. We did not inspect the premises and environment during this inspection as this does not fall within the scope of the provider’s registration.
Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People were protected from the risk of avoidable harm. Potential risks were assessed, and guidance was available for staff. Suspected or actual abuse was reported to the local authority safeguarding team, and staff spoke confidently about how they would identify abuse. The service undertook checks prior to employing staff. Medicines were managed safely.
Care was designed to be responsive to people’s needs. People had a personalised care plan, reflecting their needs and preferences. Assessments in relation to people’s healthcare needs were inconsistent; some lacked details, and others were comprehensive. The service had not received any recent complaints.
People received support from staff who were caring, relatives and people confirmed this. People were treated with dignity and respect, and staff spoke about people in a person-centred way.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.
People were supported to access healthcare and eat and drink enough. Staff spoke confidently about how they applied the principles of the Mental Capacity Act in the course of their roles.
Based on our review of safe, well-led, caring, responsive, effective the service was not able to demonstrate how they were meeting some of the underpinning principles of Right support, right care, right culture.
Right support: People were supported to make their own choices and retain control of their lives. Staff supported people to retain their independence. We made a recommendation for the provider to ensure care plans incorporated consistently detailed guidance for staff.
Right care: People’s dignity and privacy was respected and upheld. People and their relatives told us that staff treated people with dignity.
Right culture: Staff ensured people received person-centred care that was suited to their needs. However, staff had not always completed training in relation to learning disabilities or autism. We found no impact on people. We made a recommendation for the provider to review their training provision.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
This service was registered with us on 10 October 2020 and this is the first inspection. The last rating for the service under the previous provider was good, published on 16 March 2018.
Why we inspected
This was the first comprehensive inspection of this newly registered service.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Avondown on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Recommendations
We made two recommendations in relation to training provision, and the consistency of healthcare planning.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.