Orchard House

The following is CQC's published account of its assessment, published 27 August 2025. References to “we” mean CQC. It describes findings at that time.

Date of assessment: 02 to 11 July 2025. Orchard House is a residential care service providing accommodation and personal care support to people living with a learning or physical disability. At the time of this assessment there were 10 people receiving care and support in the service. The service provided accommodation in 2 separate buildings supporting 4 and 6 people respectively.

The service was last assessed in February 2018 and rated “Good”. We conducted this assessment due to the age of the previous rating.

We assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted.

We identified that risks to people living at the service had not always been managed safely. Where people had conditions such as constipation, epilepsy or reduced mobility staff were not always knowledgeable about these risks or trained to be able to respond in a safe and timely manner. Staff were not consistently aware of their responsibilities to safeguard people from the risk of harm or abuse. We could not be assured that all restrictions put in place had been made in people’s best interests, or that people’s representatives had been appropriately involved in these decisions and their care. Governance systems in place had failed to identify areas where the service was not operating safely and exposing people to a risk of harm. Infection control risks for people were not always well managed over an extended period.

However, we noted that staff worked closely with people to enable them to achieve what mattered to them, and made appropriate adjustments to ensure people were able to participate in daily life.

The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to safe care and treatment, assessing the risk of, and preventing, detecting and controlling the spread of, infections, dignity and respect, person centred care, good governance and staffing.