About the service:

Beech House is a care home that provides accommodation for up to six people who need help with their personal care. The home supports people who live with a visual impairment and other complex support needs. At the time of the inspection 6 people lived in the home. The home is a two storey building. There are two bedrooms on the ground floor and four bedrooms on the first floor. Each bedroom has its own en-suite facilities. There is a communal lounge and dining room for people to share.

People’s experience of using this service:

The overall rating for this service is ‘inadequate’ so therefore the service is in special measures.

The systems and processes in place to monitor the quality and safety of the service failed to identify and drive up improvements in the service. This has resulted in people being exposed to ongoing risks.

The provider’s fire safety arrangements were unsafe as they did not ensure people were evacuated in the event of a fire. There was also a lack of emergency evacuation equipment to help people with mobility difficulties evacuate the building.

Where people’s capacity to consent to decisions about their care was in question, the provider had not always followed the Mental Capacity Act 2005 to ensure that any decisions made on people’s behalf were legally consented to and in the people’s best interests.

Where people had health conditions, their care plans did not always contain sufficient information about these conditions and the support they required. Care plans were not always consistently updated when people’s needs changed and some of the language used to describe people’s needs was at times inappropriate.

Regular meetings took place with people’s relatives to involve them in the running of the service and seek their feedback. The opinions and views of the people who lived at the home were however not sought in any meaningful way.

We saw that staff members treated people kindly and with respect. They were aware of people’s needs and preferences and the things that were important to them.

People received the medicines they needed to keep them safe and well. Staff had received training on how to administer medication safely and their competency to do so was checked.

People had enough to eat and drink and the relatives we spoke with told us that their loved ones were happy with life at the home.

People’s needs were met by a range of health and social care professionals.

The premises were clean and well maintained. There were regular health and safety checks to ensure that the premises and the moving and handling equipment in place was safe to use.

Staff told us they felt supported by the manager and records showed staff received supervision in their job role. Staff received training and the most of the training was up to date.

The atmosphere at the home was warm and inclusive. The culture of the staff team was open and transparent.

You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.

Rating at last inspection and why we inspected: This was the first inspection of the service since it registered as a regulated provider with CQC.

Follow up: Services in special measures will be kept under review and, if we have not taken immediate action to propose to cancel the provider’s registration of the service, will be inspected again within six months.

The expectation is that providers found to have been providing inadequate care should have made significant improvements within this timeframe.

If not enough improvement is made within this timeframe so that there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration within six months if they do not improve. This service wi