About the service: Radis Community Care (Laburnum House ECH) provides personal care and support to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. The accommodation is bought or rented, and is the occupant’s own home. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for extra care housing; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support services.

At the time of our inspection the service was providing a service for 23 older people with a variety of care needs, including people living with physical frailty or memory loss due to the progression of age.

People’s experience of using this service:

People using the service told us they felt safe. Staff contacted healthcare professionals when they had concerns about people’s health and wellbeing.

People we spoke with felt staff had the skills and qualities and skills to deliver effective care. However, staff were not always supported. Records showed one to one supervisions had fallen behind and training was not always in place to support staff.

There were systems in place to monitor the quality and safety of the service provided, however these were not always effective.

People were treated with kindness and compassion. Staff were able to identify and discuss the importance of maintaining people’s respect and privacy at all times.

Medication administration records (MAR) confirmed people had received their medicines as prescribed. However, not all staff had been assessed as competent to administer medicines. There were no guidelines in place to support staff with the administration of ‘when required’ (PRN) medicines.

There were plans in place for foreseeable emergencies. However, not all risks were in place to keep people safe and accidents and incidents were not monitored or analysed to identify and reduce the risk of reoccurrence.

People were supported with their nutritional needs when required. People received varied meals including a choice of fresh food and drinks. Staff were aware of people’s likes and dislikes.

Radis Community Care (Laburnum House ECH) met the characteristics of Good in some areas and of Requires Improvement in others. Overall, we have rated the service as Required Improvement.

During our inspection we found one breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

More information is in the full report below.

Rating at last inspection: This was the first inspection of Laburnum House since the new provider took over the running of the service on 28 June 2017.

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection.

Follow up: We have rated this service as Requires Improvement and have requested an improvement action plan that will be reviewed to ensure that improvements have been made.

We will follow up on this inspection as per our re-inspection programme, and through ongoing monitoring of information received about the service.