The Care Quality Commission
  • Care Home
  • Care home

Starbrook

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

35a Dursley Road, Heywood, Westbury, BA13 4LG (01934) 429448

Provided and run by:
Achieve Together Limited

All Inspections

During an assessment under our new approach

Date of assessment: 5 November 2024 to 22 November 2024. This service is a residential care home for up to 6 people with learning disabilities. At the time of this assessment there was 6 people using this service. This assessment reviewed 33 quality statements across the 5 key questions of safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. This is the first assessment for this service to provide a rating for each key question and overall. We have assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. We found the service was meeting this guidance. There were enough staff to support people, and staff had been recruited safely. Staff had training and regular supervisions, there were also staff meetings held where staff could share ideas or discuss concerns. Incidents and accidents were recorded and had been reviewed. However, it was not always clear what actions had been taken to prevent recurrence due to inconsistent record keeping. This had been identified by the provider and actions were being taken to improve record keeping. The service was clean and there was personal protective equipment available for staff to use. The provider carried out maintenance and servicing to the premises and equipment. Medicines had been managed safely and regular checks on staff competence had been completed. Governance systems had been effective in identifying improvements needed for quality and safety. The provider had a good oversight of this service.

7 January 2022

During an inspection looking at part of the service

Starbrook is a care home providing personal care to six people with learning disabilities and autism. People are supported in one adapted building.

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

The service had experienced staff shortages at the end of 2021 due to staff vacancies and absence as a result of COVID-19. This had resulted in people having reduced opportunities to take part in activities outside the home. During this time people were supported to take part in more activities in the home and its grounds.

The management team had recruited additional temporary staff and had a rolling recruitment programme to fill staff posts permanently.

Relatives told us they had been concerned about the staffing situation at the home and had raised their concerns with the management of the service. Relatives said they did not think people had been unsafe and the recent recruitment of staff had resulted in people being supported to do more activities out of the home.

Staff told us it had been a difficult time due to the shortages, but the situation had recently improved. Staff said they were now able to support people to take part in their usual activities out of the home.

We found the following examples of good practice.

The service had introduced measures to prevent visitors from catching and spreading infections. Visitors were screened for symptoms of COVID-19 and were provided with personal protective equipment (PPE).

Staff had received training on infection prevention and control measures and how to use PPE safely. PPE was available to staff throughout the service and staff were seen using it effectively.

Additional cleaning measures had been introduced in the home. All areas of the home were clean, and records demonstrated the additional cleaning had been completed.

COVID-19 testing was being carried out for people using the service and staff in line with the latest guidance.

The provider had effective systems in place to check staff and professional visitors were vaccinated against COVID-19.

The provider had updated their infection prevention and control policy to reflect the COVID-19 pandemic and additional measures that had been introduced.