Farndale House Residential Care Home is a care home for up to three people with a learning disability or with autistic spectrum disorder. The home provides support and residential care. There are two floors and bedrooms are located on the first floor. There is a stair lift to the first floor for people who have difficult managing the stairs. On the day of the inspection there were two people living at the home.

At the last inspection in March 2015, the service was rated as Good with one area rated as Outstanding. At this inspection we found that the service remained Good with one area rated as Outstanding.

There continued to be sufficient numbers of staff employed to make sure people received the support they needed, and those staff had been safely recruited. People indicated to us they felt safe living at the home.

Staff had continued to receive appropriate training to give them the knowledge and skills they required to carry out their roles. This included training on the administration of medicines and on how to protect people from the risk of harm.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control over their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Staff were kind, caring, compassionate and patient. They respected people’s privacy and dignity and encouraged them to be as independent as possible.

Care planning described the person and the level of support they required. Care plans were reviewed regularly to ensure they remained an accurate record of the person and their day to day needs.

People were given the opportunity to feedback their views of the service provided and were encouraged and supported to express their concerns or make a complaint.

The care people received continued to be exceptionally responsive to their needs. People took part in activities of their choice and had regular holidays and weekends away with the family.

The registered manager and assistant manager carried out audits to ensure people were receiving the care and support that they required, and to monitor that staff were following the policies, procedures and systems in place.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.

This inspection took place on 12 March 2015 and was announced. We previously visited the service on 17 October 2013 and found that the registered provider met the regulations that we assessed.

The service is registered to provide personal care and accommodation for up to three people with a learning disability. On the day of the inspection there were two people living at the home. The home is located in Beverley, a market town in the East Riding of Yorkshire and is close to local amenities. Each person who lives at the home has a single bedroom and they share a bathroom. People have their own living room but usually spend time with the family.

The registered provider is not required to have a separate registered manager in post as the service is managed by the registered provider. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People told us that they felt safe living at the home. There were policies and procedures in place on safeguarding vulnerable adults from abuse and staff had completed appropriate training on this topic.

We observed good interactions between people who lived at the home and staff on the day of the inspection. People told us that staff were kind and caring and this was supported by the health and social care professionals who we spoke with.

People were supported to make their own decisions about day to day matters and the registered person explained how best interest meetings would be held when more serious decisions needed to be made.

Medicines were administered safely by staff and the arrangements for ordering, storage and recording were robust.

People’s nutritional needs had been assessed and people told us that meals provided by the home were good. People were supported appropriately by staff to eat and drink safely and their special diets were catered for.

People who had to spend time in hospital were supported by staff from the home over a 24 hour period. This meant that staff who were knowledgeable about the person’s care and support needs continued to be involved in their care; this reduced the person’s anxiety about their stay in unfamiliar surroundings and promoted positive outcomes.

We noted that the arrangements to support people who were moving to another care setting were excellent. They were designed to provide continuity of care and a positive transition to another care home for the person concerned.

People who used to live with one person at Farndale House Residential Care Home and staff continued to visit the person in their new care home so that friendships could be maintained.

We saw that there were sufficient numbers of staff on duty to meet the needs of people who lived at the home. This included providing people with meaningful activities and enabling them to remain in contact with family and friends.

New staff had been employed following the home’s recruitment and selection policies to ensure that only people considered suitable to work with vulnerable people had been employed.

There were systems in place to seek feedback from people who lived at the home in a format that they understood. There were also systems in place to enable people to raise complaints but none had been received during the previous 12 months, although several compliments had been received.

People who lived at the home and other people who we spoke with told us that the home was well managed. The quality audits undertaken by the registered person were designed to identify any areas of concern or areas that were unsafe.

We used a number of different methods to help us understand the experiences of people using the service because some of the people who lived at the home had complex needs which meant they were not able to tell us their experiences. We chatted to one person and observed interaction between people who lived at the home, the registered person and others.

We saw that people had individualised care plans in place and that these resulted in people receiving the specific support they needed to meet their needs. People were supported to be as independent as possible and to take part in activities they enjoyed. Other health professionals were involved in people's care when that support or advice was required. People's individual nutritional needs were met and their well-being was closely monitored.

People were assisted to take their medication in a safe way and the registered person and her husband had undertaken appropriate training in the management of medicines. They had also completed other training that had helped them to keep their knowledge and skills up to date.

The registered person was in the process of developing a new quality survey that could be understood by the people who lived at the home. Other quality monitoring systems that were in place at the home ensured that people received the service they required and that any improvements needed to the service had been identified.

We used a number of different methods to help us understand the experiences of people using the service, because the people using the service had complex needs which meant they were not able to tell us their experiences.

We observed the interaction and communication between the people who lived at the home, and between people who lived at the home and staff. We saw that there was excellent rapport that led to person centred care being provided.