Grays Fair Court

Not everyone who lived in the housing with care flats received the regulated activity of personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.

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

The care environment was visibly clean, with arrangements in place to maintain the cleanliness and condition of the whole service 7-days a week. Some people received support with aspects of housekeeping to keep them safe while living independently.

We received consistently positive feedback on the staff skills, quality of care and responsiveness to people's needs, including when using their call bells. The service had an active recruitment programme in place to reduce the use of agency staff and ensure consistency and familiarity within the staff team.

Staff and the management team took pride in their work and were clear that caring for people was a privilege, and valued, responsible position. Staff recognised their own accountability and were comfortable to challenge or question any concerns relating to colleagues practices.

Where incidents or accidents occurred, there was evidence of analysis being completed to determine what measures could be put in place to improve people's safety and reduce the risk of reoccurrence.

We identified some examples of notifiable incidents that should have been referred to CQC, but had not been, we have made a recommendation about this in the report. However, we could see the actual situations had been dealt with appropriately. We received timely assurances from the management team on changes to practice being implemented to prevent this happening again, and were open to our feedback to

ensure safe service provision for people.

We identified environmental risks in relation to unrestricted windows, increasing the risk of people falling from a height, with no individualised risk assessments in place. We received timely assurances from the management team that changes were being made to the environment, and risk assessments were being implemented.

We identified some aspects of medicines management that would benefit from changes to documentation, to ensure greater levels of monitoring and oversight. The management team were responsive to our feedback, and implemented timely changes to practice.