Issue - meetings

This report outlines the service priorities for residential services and our commitment to continuous improvement of services to meet the needs of residents.  The report provides an update on bed utilisation, governance and assurance, staffing, health & safety and wellbeing, property and regulatory compliance.

The Assistant Director for Adult Regulated Services and Governance summarised the update on in-house residential and extra care services, highlighting occupancy, staffing, and quality assurance.

·  Cleeve Court is a two floor 45 bed residential care home located in Twerton, Bath for older people with dementia and Combe Lea is a two floor 30 bed residential care home located in Midsomer Norton for older people with a range of physical disabilities and dementia support.

·  Extra Care is provided across 5 service locations (Avondown House, St Johns Court, Hawthorns Court, Greenacres Court and The Orchard). Extra Care services offer housing designed for individuals who value both independence and access to support services.

·  The Stepdown service is delivered in partnership with Curo as a social housing landlord. There are six stepdown flats at two Extra Care sites (Hawthorn Court and St John’s Court). The Stepdown service provides short term (up to 12 weeks) accommodation with care to people who are at risk of hospital admission or who are medically fit to leave hospital but are not ready to return to independent living.

·  The Adult Regulated Services management team are highly knowledgeable and skilled with many years of experience working in older people’s residential services. They demonstrate commitment, compassion and focus on the delivery of good outcomes for residents. The management of Extra Care and Combe Lea care home has been stable for some time.

·  Residential Services has a permanent staffing establishment of 240 staff which equates to 43% of the total ASC workforce at B&NES. In addition to this, there are a total of 213 bank staff, including both dedicated bank staff (60) and permanent staff who also hold a bank contract (153). The bank function provides staff with the opportunity to take on additional shifts which support care continuity and reduces reliance on agency staff.

·  There are currently 23 vacancies across the residential services. Staffing vacancies are monitored and actioned with HR recruitment colleagues as well as reported to the Provider Services Quality and Performance meetings. This is managed through use of bank and agency staffing and where agency staff are required the service seeks continuity of agency staff.

·  Staff retention has improved across Residential Services with 16 leavers recorded from April-September 2025 compared to 23 staff leavers for the same period in 2024.

·  Staff are required to complete a suite of mandatory training requirements as part of their induction and ongoing professional training to enable safe, efficient, and effective services to be delivered to residents.

·  Current CQC ratings - The five Extra Care schemes remain rated as ‘good’ and the two Community Resource Centres are rated overall as ‘requires improvement’ but with good in key areas such as ‘caring’ and ‘responsive’.

·  An independent provider has been commissioned to undertake unannounced mock inspection visits to both CRC’s and each Extra Care service over the last year. A summary of the mock inspection feedback has been received by each service and included in the service’s continual CQC action plan.

·  B&NES  ...  view the full minutes text for item 59