Archived: Red Oaks

Updated 1 March 2016

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 registered provider is 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 inspected this service on 18 December 2015. The inspection was announced. The registered provider was given 24 hours’ notice, because this is a small service and we needed to be sure that someone would be in when we visited.

This inspection was carried out by one Adult Social Care inspector. Before the inspection, we looked at information we held about the service, which included notifications sent to us since the last inspection. Notifications are when registered providers send us information about certain changes, events or incidents that occur within the service. We also sought relevant information from the local authority who commissioned a service from Red Oaks. We did not ask this service to send us a provider information return (PIR) before the inspection. The PIR is a document that the registered provider can use to record key information about the service, what they do well and what improvements they plan to make.

As part of this inspection we spoke with three people who used the service. We also spoke with the registered providers, one of whom was the registered manager. We had a tour of the service including communal areas and people’s bedrooms. We also spent time observing interactions between the registered providers and people using the service.

We looked at two care plans and training records as well as a selection of records used to monitor the quality of the service.

Updated 1 March 2016

Red Oaks is a small residential home in York which provides support for three adults. The service specialises in supporting people with a learning disability. The registered providers live at Red Oaks and provide all care and support themselves.

We inspected this service on 18 December 2015. The inspection was announced. The registered provider was given 24 hours’ notice, because this is a small service and we needed to be sure that someone would be in when we visited.

The service was last inspected in October 2013 at which time it was compliant with all the regulations we assessed.

The registered provider is required to have a registered manager in post and on the day of the inspection there was a manager registered with 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

During this inspection we found that people’s needs were assessed, risks identified and risk assessments put in place to manage those risks. However, remedial work needed to maintain the safety of the electrical installation had not been completed in a timely manner and this could have placed people using the service at increased risk of harm. We have made a recommendation about monitoring and responding to risks in the body of this report.

Medication was ordered, administered and recorded effectively, however, we noted that some prescribed medication was out of date and needed to be disposed of. The registered manager subsequently told us they had disposed of this and a repeat prescription had been arranged.

We found that there were systems in place to ensure that safeguarding concerns would be identified and acted upon.

The registered providers supported people to ensure their needs were met. We discussed the importance of business continuity and contingency planning to ensure that people’s needs would continue to be met in the event of an emergency. The registered providers agreed to explore this.

The registered providers were experienced and understood the needs of people using the service. The registered providers completed refresher training to maintain their skills and knowledge.

People using the service were not deprived of their liberty and the registered providers showed an understanding of principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards.

People were supported to eat and drink enough and supported to access healthcare services where necessary.

We observed numerous positive and caring interactions between people using the service and the registered providers. People had developed meaningful caring relationships with the registered providers over the significant period of time that they had lived at Red Oaks.

People were supported to make decisions and to maintain their privacy and dignity.

People using the service had person centred care plans. There were systems in place to listen to and respond to people’s experiences of using the service.

People were positive about the registered providers and the care and support provided at Red Oaks.