“It’s brilliant, absolutely fantastic”

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Affinity Trust’s residential home in Bexhill-on-Sea ‘Good’ in all five categories – safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

CQC, the independent regulator of social care in England, visited the Sussex home at the start of June. Affinity Trust supports six people there, all with complex support and communication needs.

The home is a large, adapted bungalow, with wide corridors allowing for wheelchair access. It has a large garden, personalised bedrooms, and a conservatory adapted into a sensory and activities room.

The CQC inspector observed people’s mealtimes, activities and interactions with staff. They used the Short Observational Framework, a way of observing support, to understand the experience of people who do not communicate verbally.

CQC spoke to five staff, four professionals and one relative, and reviewed a range of records.

The inspector found that:

• Staff were friendly, calm and patient, and loved working at the home, one saying, “I look forward to coming in each day and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else”.

• Promoting people’s independence was important. The inspector saw “lots of examples of this happening”, including people being supported to make their own lunch, take part in recycling and take their washing to the laundry room.

• People were involved in activities they enjoyed, including swimming, hydrotherapy, horse-riding and aromatherapy.

As part of the STOMP campaign*, staff had worked with a pharmacist to review people’s medicines. As a result, some people’s medicines had been reduced, with positive effects on their wellbeing.

CQC said that the home was consistently managed and well-led, providing high-quality, person-centred supportcare. One relative said: “Staff are very sweet and caring…my relative is the happiest I’ve ever known them, it’s brilliant, absolutely fantastic.”

The ‘Good’ rating means that all Affinity Trust’s registered locations in England have been rated ‘Good’ by CQC for more than a year.

* STOMP is a health campaign to stop the over-use of psychotropic medication to manage people’s behaviour.

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