Joseph House

Updated 26 January 2024

Date of assessment: 3 October 2024 to 12 November 2024. We carried out unannounced visits to the service on 3 and 17 October (this visit being in the evening) and our final visit was 12 November. An expert by experience carried out calls to 6 people’s relatives and family members on 8 October 2024. Joseph House is a care home providing accommodation and care to people with learning disabilities and older people. The service was rated Good overall at our last inspection, which was carried out under our previous methodology. The rating has reduced to Requires Improvement overall.

We found oversight of some people’s health needs, staff knowledge and skills, fire risks and some consent issues required a more robust approach. The culture of the service was risk averse. Staff were kind and caring and did their best to keep people safe, but people were not always encouraged to develop and fulfil their potential. There was a high proportion of agency staff which made oversight more challenging. We received feedback from 3 health and social care professionals who work closely with the service. Feedback was mixed and one professional expressed concerns over the institutionalised culture at the service.

We have judged these issues to constitute a breach of regulation relating to governance and have asked the provider to update the action plan they have already provided to us, showing how they will make improvements to the service. They have been very responsive to our feedback and immediately began to address the issues we identified.

Updated 26 January 2024

Many people living at Joseph House were not easily able to share their feedback with us about their lives at the service. We spoke with 5 people who used the service and to 6 people’s relatives as well as carrying out observations. Feedback from relatives was broadly positive and most said they worked well in partnership with the service to ensure care and support met their family member’s needs.

We observed people were spending a lot of time at the service, rather than accessing the community, although some were seen going for local walks. Despite the provision of transport for people and high individual staffing levels, there was a lack of a proactive approach to widen people’s experiences and increase independence. The culture was somewhat institutionalised, with people eating communally and spending a lot of time in one large dining room. The provider told us they were trying to encourage people to use other areas of the service, but this was proving difficult. The impact of this was people were living quite limited lives, which was not the choice of all the people who used the service.