Aquarius Care Home

We completed this assessment to follow up enforcement action we issued after our last assessment where significant shortfalls had been found in relation to safe care and treatment, person centred care and good governance.

At this assessment, we found the provider had made some improvements and was no longer in breach of regulation with regards to person centred care. [MS1][ND2]This was because new care plans contained personalised information and they were working towards everyone’s records being of the same standard. However, overall actions taken were not sufficient to improve all areas of the service and we found continued breaches of regulation in relation to safe care and treatment and good governance.

This assessment has been undertaken of a service that is used by autistic people or people with a learning disability but is not registered as a specialist service. We assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted.

People felt safe, but staff were not always guided how to minimise potential risks in their daily lives. There had been a deterioration in the home environment and safety concerns had not been addressed in a timely manner.

Although assessments of people newly admitted to the service were comprehensive and person centred, this was not reflected for people who had lived at the service longer term. The service had not updated the care plans of people currently living at the service, so they provided the necessary guidance for staff.

People and relatives told us there was a high turnover of staff which impacted the quality of care people received. People and relatives said staff were kind and caring but did not always have time to sit and talk with them. There had been improvements in how staff were supported through the use of formal supervisions. However, there were mixed responses from staff about how well they felt supported and listened to.

People continued to be supported to maintain their health and the service had received positive feedback from health care professionals about their working relationship. People had a choice of what to eat and drink to stay healthy.

Improvements had been made in monitoring accidents and incidents and systems to monitor the quality of care had been introduced. However, these processes had not enabled the service to make all the necessary improvements in a timely manner.