Avondale Castlemount Lodge

The inspection was unannounced and took place as part of our regular monitoring role. The rating at the last inspection was “Good” and after this inspection has remained “Good”.

We found a service with a strong focus on personal wellbeing, rehabilitation and recovery which put people’s mental health at its heart. The service and its staff worked with people in compassionate, person centred and creative ways to explore their mental health in a way that was accessible to them and helped them to grow and achieve outcomes from their care that were meaningful and positive.

There were robust care plans and risk assessments in place, which set out a clear plan of how people would be supported to manage risks to their physical and mental health. These were designed in partnership with people, were regularly reviewed, and were balanced against people’s rights to make their own decisions and choices.

The service promoted people’s independence and staff worked together with people to prepare them for important decisions and transitions, including supporting people to live independently in the future.

There was a passionate and dedicated staff team who had a high level of training, were knowledgeable about people’s needs and treated them with dignity, kindness and compassion. They knew about the risks to people and how to safeguard them from abuse and neglect. The level of staffing was appropriate to the needs of people and was regularly reviewed.

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. We found the service were closely complying with this guidance, and its principles were embedded in all elements of people’s health and care to emphasise people’s rights, independence and choice.

People received the care they needed, when they needed it. When things went wrong processes were effective at identifying areas for improvement, and there was a positive learning culture at the service.

The building was a clean and vibrant space which was largely well maintained with appropriate safety checks, however in a small number of instances risks to people had not always been identified.

There was strong leadership at the service, who were open and accessible. They led by example and staff felt supported and empowered by them to provide a high standard of care. The governance systems in place were robust in most instances, however in a minority of cases they had not identified some of the findings of this inspection and needed to be strengthened. Where any concerns were raised during the inspection, the leadership team responded quickly to address and resolve them.

Professionals working with the service described strong and positive relationships with Castlemount Lodge and described how they worked in collaboration to provide joined up support to help people manage their health and care needs in a holistic way.