Housing 21 - Brookside Court

At the last inspection in April 2016 the service was rated Good. At this inspection we found the service remained Good. Feedback provided by people using the service included, "The staff are very caring, excellent in fact" and "The support from the staff is brilliant, no complaints whatsoever". Friends and family who were at people's homes when we visited them were equally positive, "My [relative] has a lot of support from the staff and they are really good. The managers listen and will act on things we request on behalf of [relative]".

Staff have an understanding of the person centred care they provide and we were told by one staff member that "Everyone is different and we provide what they need in relation to their care and support the way they want it".

People are supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff support them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service support this practice.

Staff have a good understanding of systems in place to manage medicines, safeguarding matters and behaviours that are challenging to others. People's medicines are managed so that they receive them safely, all medication is in a secure place in people's homes and recorded in their care plan. We have made a recommendation about the management of recording medicines.

There were sufficient staff available to ensure people's wellbeing, safety and security was protected, however there has been a lot of short notice sickness that had put pressure on the care staff in the last couple of months. A robust recruitment and selection process is in place. This ensures prospective new staff have the right skills and are suitable to work with people living at the extra care living facility.

Staff are compassionate, kind and caring and have developed good relationships with people using the service. People are comfortable in the presence of staff. Relatives confirmed the staff were caring and looked after people very well.

A lot of consideration and thought has gone into the decoration and layout of the service. The overall effect created is a homely and peaceful environment in all communal areas at the scheme with due consideration given to the needs of people with dementia.

Staff spoke consistently about the service being a good place to work and that they enjoyed their roles. Care staff told us they were happy with the training and felt supported by the manager.

When we completed our previous inspection on 26/04/2016 we found concerns that confidential information was not always protected within the main office of the agency. At this time this topic area was included under the key question of Effective. We reviewed and refined our assessment framework and published the new assessment framework in October 2017. Under the new framework this topic area is included under the key question of caring. Therefore, for this inspection, we have inspected this key question and also the previous key question of Effective to make sure all areas are inspected to validate the ratings.

The five questions we ask about services and what we found