Archived: Beecholme House

Updated 16 July 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 checked 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 focused inspection was undertaken by one inspector on 29 June 2016 and was announced. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because we needed to be sure that someone would be available in the office so we could look at records relating to the management of the service. This inspection was carried out to check all the improvements the provider said they would take to ensure they met their legal requirements had been implemented. We inspected the service against one of the five questions we ask about services: Is the service well led?

Prior to the visit we reviewed the information we held about the service, which included the action plan we had asked the provider to send us. The action plan set out how the provider intended to meet the regulations they had breached.

During our visit we spoke with two people using the service, the registered manager and the deputy manager. We also looked at a range records that related to the overall management of the service, which included various quality monitoring audits and satisfaction surveys carried out by the provider in the last six months.

Updated 16 July 2016

The last inspection of this service was carried out on 05 January 2016 when we found the provider was in breach of the regulations. This was because the provider did not always maintain accurate and accessible records relating to the overall management of the service. Specifically, we found no recorded evidence to show the provider routinely quality monitored the service or sought and valued people’s views about how Beecholme House was run. This meant it was difficult to determine whether or not the provider’s own checks or feedback from people using the service were used to drive improvement at the home.

After the service’s last inspection, the provider wrote to us to say what they would do to meet legal requirements in relation to this breach of the regulations. We undertook this focused inspection of Beecholme House on the 29 June 2016 to check the provider had followed their action plan and now met legal requirements.

This report only covers our findings in relation to this topic. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for ‘Beecholme House’ on our website at www.cqc.org.uk’

Beecholme House is a rehabilitation service that can accommodate and provide support for up to fifteen younger males with a past or present experience of mental ill health. The service specialises in helping people to develop the necessary skills to move onto more independent living. The service is divided into a main hostel located at 2-4 Beecholme Avenue where up to 12 people can live and a nearby three bedded ‘step down’ unit. The step down house is not permanently staffed and people who stay there live more independently than the people living at the main house. When we inspected the service there were 12 people living in the main house and two people staying at the step down facility.

The service had a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have a legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

During our focused inspection, we found that the registered provider had followed their action plan. We saw legal requirements had been met because the provider now maintained accurate and accessible records relating to the overall management of the home. For example, we were able to look at recorded evidence in relation to the quality monitoring audits management regularly carried out at the service, feedback received from people using the service and action taken in response to issues identified or raised through these processes.