Thames House

“The service is a residential care home with 20 bedrooms. The service supports people with complex mental health needs, brain injuries, complex dementia and neuro disabilities including Huntington’s disease and Parkinson’s.”

“During this inspection we looked at 21 quality statements. The service was providing a regulated activity to 18 people at the time of the inspection.”

“We identified 3 breaches of regulation at the service. The breaches related to safe and effective staffing and governance.”

“We rated the service requires improvement because compliance in some areas of clinical training was low in modules that were highly relevant to safe care, and concerns relating to medicines were identified. Care records required improvement as some were inconsistent, inaccurate and contradictory. Some of the providers policies were overdue for review, including the sepsis policy. Referrals to other services were not always completed in a timely manner, best interest decisions and conditions as part of a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) authorisation were not always listed in peoples care records. People’s care was not always person centred, and palliative care required improvement. The service leads and the provider’s quality assurance systems had identified some of the concerns we found during this inspection prior to our visit, but there were gaps in oversight.”

“However, we did see positive practice including the provider ensuring a continuity of care when people moved between services, a safe and clean environment, an emphasis on promoting staff wellbeing and valuing diversity within the workplace.”

“We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this inspection.”