Village Farm

Updated 4 October 2019

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, 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 was carried out by an inspector and an assistant inspector.

Service and service type

Village Farm is registered as a ‘care home’. People in care homes receive accommodation and nursing or personal care as single package under one contractual agreement. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulates both the premises and the care provided, and both were looked at during this inspection.

The home had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the home is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection

The registered provider was given a short period of notice before we undertook our inspection visit. This was because people often went out into the community to take part in activities or to visit their friends or relatives. We therefore needed to be sure that they, the registered manager and staff would be in.

What we did

In planning our inspection, we reviewed information we had received about the home since the last inspection. This included any notifications (events which happened in the home that the provider is required to tell us about).

The registered provider had completed a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the home, what the home does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.

In addition, we considered our last Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection report and information that had been sent to us by other agencies such as commissioners who had a contract with the service.

We also contacted Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England.

During our inspection we spoke with five people, a relative who met with us as part of our inspection visit and another relative by telephone. We also spoke with the registered provider, the registered manager, a senior staff member, the registered providers training officer and four of the care staff team.

We reviewed a range of written records including specific parts of three people’s care records, staff recruitment information, information relating to the administration of medicines and the registered providers auditing and monitoring of service provision.

After the inspection

Following our inspection visit we spoke with four relatives of people who lived at the home by telephone to seek their views of the care being provided to their loved ones.

We also continued to seek clarification from the registered manager to support and validate the evidence we found during our inspection. The registered manager provided us with a range of additional audit and quality assurance information as part of this process.

Updated 4 October 2019

About the service

Village Farm is a residential care home providing accommodation and personal care for up to six people whose needs are associated with learning disabilities and autism. The home is situated in the village of Norton Disney, which is approximately seven miles from both the city of Lincoln and the market town of Newark-on-Trent. At the time of this inspection six people were living at the service.

The home worked within the principles and values that underpin Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. This ensured that people could live as full a life as possible and achieve the best possible outcomes. The principles reflect the need for people with learning disabilities and/or autism to live meaningful lives that include control, choice, and independence.

People’s experience of using this service

People and relatives were positive about the staff and the management team. People told us staff were very caring and compassionate and that staff knew them extremely well. Staff told us that it was a very happy team and they all worked well together.

People were protected against abuse and discrimination and their rights were upheld. Safe recruitment was followed to ensure the staff employed were suitable to care for people and shared the values of the service.

People received their medicines as prescribed. These were administered by staff who were competent to do so. The registered provider was following relevant guidance for infection control. The environment was clean and well maintained.

Staff received training and were well supported to ensure they had the skills, knowledge and confidence they needed to perform their roles effectively. Staff were very knowledgeable about people's needs and supported people to remain as independent as possible.

People were well supported to eat and drink enough to maintain their health and their dietary needs were well supported.

There was a strong person-centred culture throughout the service and staff were skilled in providing compassionate and caring support for people. People's dignity was very well managed with thoughtfulness and care was individualised with people's choices and preferences fully respected.

Staff demonstrated caring values and showed a very positive regard for what was important and mattered to people. The trust developed between people and staff helped promote people's independence, confidence and helped them achieve positive outcomes. Respect for equality, diversity and inclusion was fully embedded within the service and in how staff communicated with and worked with people.

Staff promoted people's right to make their own decisions wherever possible and respected the choices they made. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Where people lacked capacity, the registered provider and registered manager worked within mental capacity legislation and consulted with relevant people on important decisions made in their best interest.

People and their relatives were involved in reviewing their care and making any necessary changes. Information was provided in formats that were accessible to people. When it was needed staff worked well with a range of external health and social care professionals to ensure people’s existing and changing needs were being fully met

A process was in place which ensured any concerns or complaints people and their relatives may have had could be raised. Concerns were acted upon quickly and lessons were learned through positive two-way communication.

The service was consistently well managed by a registered provider and registered manager who worked closely together and demonstrated strong values, led by example and maintained an open and a caring culture.

The registered provider had systems in place to monitor quality and was open to the continuous development of the service. They had implemented technology to obtain more feedback about the services provided and to assist them in the monitoring of people's safety, wellbeing and care. Any improvements identified as needed were driven through constructive engagement with people, their relatives, staff and stakeholders.

Systems were also in place to enable the registered provider to monitor accidents and incidents to identify any lessons learned and make any improvements when they had identified this was required.

Rating at last inspection

At the last inspection we gave the service a rating of ‘Good’ (published 02 November 2017).

Why we inspected

Since our previous rating was awarded the registered provider of the service has altered its legal entity but all of the facilities and arrangements for care remained the same as when we last inspected. We have therefore used the previous rating to inform our planning and decisions about the rating at this inspection.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk