About the service: Lotus House is a residential care home that provides personal care to seven adults all of whom have a learning disability.

People’s experience of using this service:

• People showed they were happy living at Lotus House, they felt safe and liked the staff team. Relatives liked the way the staff supported their family members. Staff were kind, caring and compassionate and knew each person well. They enjoyed working at the home and felt the registered manager gave them good, supportive leadership.

• The provider had systems in place to manage risks and keep people safe from avoidable harm. Staff gave people their medicines safely, followed good practice guidelines to help prevent the spread of infection and ensured health and safety was a priority.

• There were enough staff on duty to deliver support to each person in the way they wanted. Staff received training, supervision, guidance and support so that they could do their job well. Staff respected people’s privacy and dignity and encouraged independence wherever possible.

• People chose the meals they wanted and helped staff prepare them. Staff supported people as far as possible to eat healthily and made sure special diets were adhered to. External healthcare professionals helped people maintain their health.

• People made decisions in all aspects of their lives and were fully involved in planning what they wanted to do. They had opportunities to put forward their views on the running of the home. Staff understood the provider’s ethos and values and made sure that people’s lives were as comfortable and fulfilling as possible.

• The registered manager and staff team strove for continuous improvement, worked well with external professionals and ensured that people were part of their local community.

• The service had been developed and designed in line with the values that underpin the Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. These values include choice, promotion of independence and inclusion.

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

Rating at last inspection: At the last inspection we rated this service Good (report published on 10 May 2016).

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we might inspect sooner.

This inspection took place on 14 April 2016 and was unannounced.

Lotus House provides care and support for up to seven people with a learning disability. There were seven people living at the service when we visited.

The service did not have a registered manager, but a manager was in place who was going through the registration process. 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.

Staff had been trained to recognise signs of potential abuse and to keep people safe. People felt safe living at the service. Processes were in place to manage identifiable risks within the service and to ensure people did not have their freedom restricted unnecessarily.

The provider carried out recruitment checks on new staff to make sure they were suitable to work at the service. There were systems in place to ensure people were supported to take their medicines safely and at the appropriate times.

Staff had been provided with essential training to keep their skills up to date and were supported with regular supervision from the manager. People’s consent to care and support was sought in line with the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005.

People were supported to eat and drink and to maintain a balanced diet. They were registered with a GP. If required staff supported people to access other healthcare facilities.

Positive and caring relationships had been developed between people and staff. The service had processes in place to ensure that people’s views were acted on. People were encouraged to maintain their independence and staff supported them to promote their privacy and dignity.

Pre-admission assessments were undertaken before people came to live at the service. This ensured their identified needs would be adequately met. There was a complaints procedure in place to enable people to raise concerns if they needed to.

There was a positive, open and inclusive culture at the service; and good leadership and management were demonstrated. This inspired staff to provide a quality service. The quality monitoring systems and processes were used effectively to drive future improvements and to identify where action was needed.

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.

During our inspection we spoke with five members of staff including the service manager. We spoke with three people who used the service and one visiting professional. We noted the provider liaised with other professionals to ensure people’s needs were met safely. People were supported to attend appointments which meant their health needs were managed effectively.

The people we spoke with told us staff were kind and provided them with care that made them feel safe. Staff we spoke with were aware of the safeguarding policy and protocols they should follow.There were effective systems in place to ensure the environment was clean and hygiene.

We looked at the recruitment records for five staff who worked at Lotus House. We noted that personal files were well organised. They contained documentation which provided a clear audit trail which demonstrated that appropriate checks had been undertaken before staff commenced employment.

People were supported to raise concerns and complaints in a variety of ways and provided with information on how to complain in an accessible format.

Staff told us that they took all concerns seriously. The people we spoke with told us they knew how to raise a concern or complaint.

We visited Lotus House on 17 September 2012 and found people living there in a relaxed manner. We spoke with all seven people living at the home although some people had limited communication abilities. We used a number of different methods to help us understand the experiences of people using the service, as people living at Lotus House had complex needs which meant they were not always able to tell us their experiences. Three people were able to tell us they enjoyed living there and felt cared for by staff: other people were able to show us through their communication methods that they too were happy. On the day of our visit, staff were taking people on a week’s holiday.

We observed a friendly atmosphere with good interactions between staff and people living in the home. We saw people were involved in decisions about their care and that people were treated with respect and dignity. Staff we spoke with told us they enjoyed working in the home.

During our visit to Lotus House on 08 November 2011 people told us they were happy living here and they liked the staff and the new manager. They said staff kept them safe and they could talk to staff if anything was not right.