Kingsley Road is a service providing care for people with learning disabilities and/or physical disabilities. It is registered to accommodate up to eight people who require personal care, in three purpose built bungalows. At the time of the inspection, seven people were living there. The service is located in a residential area on the edge of Chippenham.

At the last inspection, the service was rated Good. At this inspection we found the service remained Good.

Why the service is rated Good.

The home continued to ensure people were safe. There were enough suitable staff to meet people’s needs. Risk assessments were carried out to enable people to retain their independence and receive care with minimum risk to themselves or others. People received their medicines safely and people were protected from abuse because staff understood how to keep them safe; staff understood the processes they should follow if an allegation of abuse was made. All staff informed us concerns would be followed up if they were raised. The homes were clean and well maintained throughout.

People continued to receive effective care. People who lacked capacity had decisions made in line with current legislation. Staff received training to ensure they had the skills and knowledge required to effectively support people. People told us, and we saw, their healthcare needs were met. People were supported to eat and drink according to their likes and dislikes. 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.

The home continued to provide a caring service to people. People and their relatives told us, and we observed that staff were kind and patient. People’s privacy and dignity was respected by staff and their cultural or religious needs were valued. People were involved in decisions about the care and support they received. People’s choices were always respected and staff encouraged choice for those who struggled to communicate with them.

The home remained responsive to people’s individual needs. Care and support was personalised to each person which ensured they were able to make choices about their day to day lives. People had chosen the colours to decorate their homes and had been supported to personalise their bedrooms. People were supported to follow their own activity programmes. These considered people’s hobbies and interests and reflected people’s preferences. People knew how to complain and there were a range of opportunities for them to raise concerns with the registered manager and designated staff.

The home continued to be well led. People and staff spoke highly about the management. The registered manager continually monitored the quality of the service and made improvements in accordance with people’s changing needs.

The service met all relevant fundamental standards.

We carried out this visit to follow up one outcome area where the provider had been found to be non-compliant at the inspection in January 2013. We saw that the required improvements had been made. The home now had a full staff team following a recruitment programme and all new staff had completed the induction process.

People were happy to see us and talk about the care and support they received. Care workers told us they enjoyed working in the home and were satisfied that there were enough staff at all times to enable them to support people safely and appropriately.

On the 21 January 2013 we visited Kingsley Road in response to information of concern. This related to a change to people's care routines and on people's rights to have choice. We also looked at staffing levels.

People expressed their views and were involved in making decisions about their care and treatment. We spoke with four people who lived in the home and asked them if they received their care at the times they wanted, they told us that 'mostly they did'.

There were not enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff to meet people’s needs. We spoke with four members of staff who told us that morale was poor and staff were concerned at the low number of staff on shifts whilst many people now needed additional support. One member of staff told us, "we are run off our feet in the mornings". They explained that up until10.00 am, there were only two members of staff on the shift and several people needed support with their care.

In this report the name of a registered manager appears who was not in post and not managing the regulatory activities at this location at the time of the inspection. Their name appears because they were still a Registered Manager on our register at the time.

Mencap has three properties next to each other, numbers 29, 31 and 33 Kingsley Road. When we carried out an inspection in May 2012 we found that improvements were needed. We visited the homes on 3 July 2012 to see if improvements had been made to the maintenance and decoration, infection control and the quality assurance systems.

We found that the required improvements had been made, staff training had been updated and systems which monitored the health and safety of the homes and quality assurance were being followed.

We observed that people looked well cared for. People said the staff looked after them really well and all the staff were lovely. We observed that staff were polite and attentive to people’s needs.

We spoke with a member of staff who said, “I am very pleased with all the improvements made as I think staff and people living here want to take pride in their home”. One person told us they now liked to help out by dusting the hallway and lounge.

People living in the home said they liked the new decoration. One person said they had chosen the colour pink for the walls in the lounge. They were also going to have new carpets and curtains. A member of staff said, " it was lovely that so much work had been done because it was much more homely and much nicer to work in".

People told us they liked living in the home and liked the staff who supported them. We saw that people had their own rooms which they had personalised. Staff said the home was in need of decoration.

One person said they went to their day centre and another person said they had not been to their day service for some time because there was no transport. Staff said they were trying to resolve the problem.

We saw that staff treated people respectfully and with dignity and had a good relationship with each of the people living in the home.

People said that they liked living at Kingsley Road. They said that staff were friendly and gave them the support that they needed. People said that they could also do a lot of things for themselves. Some people wrote their own menus and then had help from staff with the food shopping.

People had their own plans which showed what they like to do and the support that they wanted from staff. One person showed us a certificate that they had been given for completing a catering course at a local college. Another person said that they liked going to music concerts and had recently been to a big concert in Bristol.

People said that they talked to staff about how they were getting on and new things they would like to do. Some people had said that they wanted a new television in the lounge and a large, flat screen model had now been bought.

One person needed a lot of help with making decisions, and with their personal care. Meetings were being held to talk about this, to make sure that staff did things in the right way.

People said that they felt safe because there were staff around to help them with their medicines and with the other things that they needed.

People in the two smaller bungalows liked having their own lounge and a kitchen where they could make their own meals. People could decorate the rooms as they wanted, so their bungalows looked very homely with a lot of pictures and personal items around.

Kingsley Road is a care home which provides accommodation and personal care for up to seven people with learning disabilities.The service is made up of three adjacent bungalows, with a staff team providing support across all three. At the time of our inspection seven people were living at the service.

This inspection took place on 17 October 2015 and was unannounced. We returned on 19 October 2015 to meet with the registered manager and complete the inspection.

There was a registered manager in post at the service. 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People who use the service were positive about the care they received and praised the quality of the staff and management. Comments from people included, “I feel safe here. I have a button I can press if I want staff to help me”, and “I feel safe here, the staff help us”. Some people were not able to tell us whether they felt safe, but we observed that people appeared comfortable in the presence of staff. We observed people smiling and laughing with staff. A relative we spoke with said, “I’m very confident (my relative) is safe at Kingsley Road”.

People told us they were involved in developing and reviewing their support plans. Systems were in place to protect people from abuse and harm and staff knew how to use them.

Staff understood the needs of the people they were supporting. People told us staff provided the support and care they needed in a kind way.

Staff were appropriately trained and skilled. They received a thorough induction when they started working for the service. They demonstrated a good understanding of their roles and responsibilities, as well as the values and philosophy of the service. The staff had completed training to ensure the care and support provided to people was safe and effective to meet their needs.

There was strong management in the service and the registered manager was clear how they expected staff to support people. The provider assessed and monitored the quality of care. The service encouraged feedback from people and their relatives, which they used to make improvements.