In order to assist us in our inspection we were accompanied by an expert by experience. The expert by experience visited the service for people with learning disabilities at Long Leys Court. The expert by experience had experience in the area of care being inspected and was able to spend time with people to obtain their views. They spoke with relatives of people who were at the unit. Overall they found people had a positive experience.

Carers told us, "I feel involved in xxx care plan – they bring her to see me as I don’t drive – I live 50 miles away” and “When we visit Long Leys it is always clean and we are made welcome – we can visit anytime".

We spoke with staff and patients and looked at records in Discovery House and Long Leys Court.

We found evidence in the care plans in both units that patients had been consulted about their care.

We observed that interactions by staff with patients were positive in both areas.

We observed staff carrying out activities with patients. At Long Leys Court we observed activities on the ward and in the day activity area.

At Discovery House we observed patients had personal activity plans and were involved in activities.

We looked at consent and discussed this with staff. Staff were able to tell us about consent. Patients told us they were asked for consent before care was provided.

We looked at staffing arrangements and found in both units staffing was planned in order to meet the needs of people who received care.

There were 11 patients at Long Leys Court at the time of this inspection. Patients were accommodated in four bungalows set around a central courtyard garden.

We met and observed all of the patients and spoke with four of them to get their views of the service.

Patients were generally positive about their experience of Long Leys Court. They told us about activities they enjoyed. Patients told us they felt safe. One patient said “I can talk to staff and they listen”.

Patients spoke positively of staff transporting those with escorted leave to get away from the ward as often as possible. One patient said how much he valued this.

The mother of one patient who was moving during the visit requested a short meeting to express her delight with the improvements she had witnessed in her son since his admission eighteen months ago.

Patients described the food as good. At the weekends staff cook brunch for them and patients spoke positively of staff taking them out to help with the ward grocery shopping. However one patient told us that recent requests to go shopping, (covered by special leave arrangements), providing they were well enough on the day, had not happened due to staffing.

Another patient said they were often unable to have escorted leave due to staffing numbers.

Two patients spoke positively about their relationships with the nursing staff and the Responsible Clinician (RC) who supervises their care.