Dene Brook

Updated 19 February 2022

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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

As part of CQC’s response to care homes with outbreaks of COVID-19, we are conducting reviews to ensure that the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practice is safe and that services are compliant with IPC measures. This was a targeted inspection looking at the IPC practices the provider has in place. We also asked the provider about any staffing pressures the service was experiencing and whether this was having an impact on the service.

This inspection took place on 27 January 2022 and was announced. We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection.

Updated 19 February 2022

About the service

Dene Brook is a residential care home providing personal care to adults with a learning disability and who have additional support needs including mental health and autistic spectrum disorders. The service can support up to 14 people. On the day of the inspection there were 11 people living at the service.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People were safe and protected from avoidable harm. Individual risk assessments were in place. People told us they felt they were kept safe. People's medicines were managed well.

The home was clean and tidy throughout. Positive changes to the environment were seen and further work was underway to continue to improve people’s personal accommodation and communal areas. Correct infection control procedures were followed, and the service had taken additional infection control measures to minimise the risk posed by COVID-19.

There were enough staff to support people and they had been recruited in a way that helped to keep people safe. Staff received appropriate training, support and supervision. The service used a range of audits and monitoring tools to assess the quality and safety of the environment and care provided. These helped the provider and registered manager to identify where improvements were needed to continue to develop the service.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.

The service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting the underpinning principles of Right support, right care, right culture. For example, care plans were individualised and included information about what really mattered to the person. Staff knew people well and supported them to be independent and fulfil their personal goals.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 10 February 2020).

Why we inspected

We received concerns about the management of the service and the support provided to people using the service. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, effective and well-led only.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to coronavirus and other infection outbreaks effectively.

The overall rating for the service has stayed the same, good. This is based on the findings at this inspection. We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe, effective and well led sections of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information 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.