Agenda item

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 Commissioners were invited by the Director Adult Social Care to undertake a Quality Assurance Visit to each Community Resource Centre in July 2025. Combe Lea had a strong assurance visit scoring 85% for good level of compliance and standards. For Cleeve Court the assurance visit resulted in a robust service improvement plan to address criteria scored as requires improvement or non-compliant.

·  CQC conducted an unannounced onsite inspection of Cleeve Court CRC in July 2025 with assessment activity running from 17 July 2025 to conclusion in early October 2025. The inspection concentrated on the domains of ‘safe’ and ‘well led’ as these were rated as requires improvement at the December 2022 inspection. The draft inspection report has been received by the Director Adult Social Care and this is in the process of being checked for factual accuracy by 14th November 2025 CQC deadline. Following this process the CQC report will then be finalised and published but we cannot anticipate CQC timescales for publication.

Councillor Liz Hardman asked if there was enough space within the existing centres and whether funding was in place to support staffing costs and recruitment.

The Assistant Director for Adult Regulated Services and Governance replied that the expansion of Extra Care at Avondown House is being explored and said that bank staff are used to minimise agency costs.

Councillor Lesley Mansell asked about the impact of the work on staff well-being.

The Assistant Director for Adult Regulated Services and Governance replied that well-being support is provided from both within and outside of the Council and that a dedicated Human Resources business partner is in place.

Councillor Bharat Pankhania asked for further information about the unannounced inspections.

The Assistant Director for Adult Regulated Services and Governance replied that inspectors would arrive during the day and arrange to return within one week for a site visit. She explained that the Registered Manager and Head of Service would be present during the visit and that staff and residents would be spoken to as part of the process.  She added that the service worked with the Lead Inspector to develop an action plan, and this was updated and reviewed with them in early August.

The Head of Service, Residential Services described the inspection process as positive and said regular feedback had been given by the inspectors.

Kevin Bernett asked about succession planning from a staffing point of view.

The Assistant Director for Adult Regulated Services and Governance replied that the Workforce Strategy includes areas such as apprenticeships and student placements in collaboration with Bath College.

The Panel RESOLVED to;

i) Note the update on Residential Services for Community Resource Centres (care homes) and Extra Care Services.

ii) Agree that a further update report will be presented to Panel following the publication of the CQC report for Cleeve Court and any other relevant CQC inspection reports as they arise.