Archived: Linden House

Updated 3 August 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 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.

This inspection took place on 3, 6 and 14 June 2016 and was unannounced. One inspector carried out the inspection. We spoke with three people using the service, the deputy manager and three members of staff. In addition we reviewed records for four people using the service, toured the premises and checked records relating to the management of the service.

Before the inspection we reviewed information we have about the service including notifications. A notification is a report about important events which the service is required to send us by law. We also spoke with the local authority quality team.

Updated 3 August 2016

The overall rating for this service is ‘Requires improvement’. However, we are placing the service in 'special measures'. We do this when services have been rated as 'Inadequate' in any key question over two consecutive comprehensive inspections. The ‘Inadequate’ rating does not need to be in the same question at each of these inspections for us to place services in special measures.

The inspection took place on the 3, 6 and 14 June 2016 and was unannounced. Linden House was previously inspected on 10 December 2015, 29 June 2015 and 4 February 2015 to check if breaches of regulations had been met. Prior to this breaches of regulation had been found at an inspection in October 2014 where we issued a warning notice for a lack of effective quality assurance systems. These were for shortfalls with sufficient numbers of staff, staff recruitment, staff support and training and lack of notifications to the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Linden House is a detached house in a residential area of Gloucester. It provides accommodation and care for six adults with mental health needs. At the time of our inspection there were four people living at the home.

Linden House did not have a registered manager in post. 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.

Sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, skilled and experienced persons were not deployed. In addition staff had not received regular supervision sessions.

Some people had not had authorisations made to deprive them of their liberty.

Despite regular checks on the service provided these had not resulted in improvements to areas identified for action such as guidelines for giving people their medicines and maintenance of equipment and the garden.

Staff and management understood how to protect people from harm and abuse. People received personalised care and there were arrangements in place to respond to concerns or complaints from people using the service and their representatives. People were treated with respect and kindness, their privacy and dignity was respected. They were supported to maintain their independence and keep in contact with relatives. People were enabled to be involved in activities such as trips out of the home.

Staff were able to develop knowledge and skills for their role through a programme of training. However staff supervision sessions had not been taking place.

We found breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.