Updated 9 January 2019
The inspection
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.
Inspection team: The inspection team consisted of a lead inspector and an Expert by Experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. Their areas of experience are mental health and autism.
Service and service type: Lime Court is registered to provide care for people with learning disabilities and autistic spectrum disorder, mental health, physical disability, sensory impairment and dementia.
The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
Notice of inspection: This was a comprehensive inspection which took place on 04 December 2018 and was unannounced.
What we did when preparing for and carrying out this inspection: When planning our inspection, we looked at the information we held about the service. This included notifications received from the provider about deaths, accidents/incidents and safeguarding alerts, which they are required to send us by law. Before the inspection, the provider completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asked the provider to give some key information about the service, what the services does well and improvements they plan to make. We also contacted the Local Authority commissioning service for any relevant information they may have to support our inspection. We also contacted the Health Watch Birmingham who provide information on care services.
Inspection site visit activity started on 04 December 2018 and ended on 04 December 2018. It included discussions with people who use the service, their relatives, members of care staff and the registered manager. We also carried out a Short Observational Framework for Inspection (SOFI), which is an observational tool used to help us collect evidence about the experience of people who use services, especially where people were not able to tell us verbally. We visited the office location on 04 December 2018 to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures.
During our visit we looked at the care records of three people and three staff files as well as the medicine management processes and records maintained by the provider about recruitment and staff training. We also looked at records relating to the management of the service and a selection of the service’s policies and procedures to check people received a quality service.