Castlecraigs Court is a housing support service provided by Cornerstone, which operates all year round. The people we support here have their own tenancies, with management on call for emergency situations.

The Care Inspectorate had an unannounced inspection at Castlecraigs Court on September 19 2019, which resulted in the following grades;

Quality of care and support: 6 - Excellent

Quality of management and leadership: 6 – Excellent

Service Achievements

These fantastic results were based on various findings. The Care Inspectorate noted that Cornerstone had “excellent working relationships” with other external agencies such as local authority commissioning teams, and the health and social care partnerships. They stated that the service “ensure regular and meaningful communication, enabling smooth transitioning from one service to another”, which allows people who experience care and are new to the service to be supported through what can be a difficult time.

The Care Inspectorate found clear evidence of the people we support being continuously involved in the development of their own packages of care. This includes the people we support being able to set their own agendas for review meetings, deciding on their own action plans, and in some instances writing their own care plans.

The inspection established that “People experiencing care…confirmed that the information held within their plans was an accurate reflection of their lives, providing staff with the most up to date information required to ensure that the support delivered was relevant to their needs.”

Individual outcomes were also noted as excellent, which were readily available to assess through each individuals’ quality assured care plans, “where information is regularly added to ensure the reader has a detailed knowledge of how each one is shaping up.”  The care plans showed that the people we support were able to enjoy valued connections with family members by participating in family weddings, as well as developing independent skills, and leading a team of staff to plan for their first international holiday. 

“Ahead of everyone's statutory six-monthly review, a multi-disciplinary approach is taken to ensure that all interested parties can feed into the discussion on how well an individual is progressing. Detailed action plans come at the end of the review to ensure that measurable outcomes for individuals are stated and can be tracked.”

Based on SSSC Safe Administration of Medications and the Health and Social Care Standards guidelines, a medication best practice framework has been developed by the management, which gives the most up to date and person-centred guidance to the staff.

This “provides staff with a detailed approach to all eventualities within this essential support area, as well as providing further regular opportunities for quality assurance.”

Areas for improvement noted at the previous inspection have now been completed, including “regular observational monitoring of staff practice and reflective practice after training, thus preparing all staff for the responsibilities of being a registered worker with the SSSC.”

Castlecraigs Court have successfully raised public awareness of the work they do at the service by running a very popular ‘Strictly Summer Ball’, which in turn raised much needed funds that the people we support are able to benefit from. 

“Not only was the event a great success in fundraising terms, it also allowed service users to fulfil lifelong ambitions of being able to get up on stage in front of a crowd and play live music.”

The service aim to hold this successful event annually, “celebrating all that is good about Cornerstone Castlecraigs Court.”