12 January 2023
During an inspection looking at part of the service
About the service
Ordinary Living is a supported living service providing personal care to people living in their own homes. The service provides support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of the inspection 11 people were receiving support with personal care.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Right Support
¿ Staff had not always worked with people to identify goals and aspirations. Where goals had been identified there were no clear plans to help people achieve them.
¿ There was a lack of oversight of the restrictive practices in place. This meant they might not be reviewed regularly to ensure they remained proportionate and the least restrictive option.
¿ When people experienced periods of distress staff learned from those events and considered how they might be avoided in the future.
¿ Staff supported and encouraged people to access specialist health and social care support in the community.
¿ Staff supported people with their medicines, so they received them as prescribed. There were protocols in place for staff to follow before administering medicines to be used ‘as required’.
¿ People were supported to have choice and control and records showed staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies in the service supported this practice. However, there was a lack of oversight of the restrictions in place. This meant opportunities to reduce restrictions might be missed.
Right Care:
¿ People received kind and compassionate care. Staff protected and respected people’s privacy and dignity. They understood and responded to their individual needs.
¿ Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it.
¿ The service had enough staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe.
¿ Not all staff had received training in supporting autistic people or people with a learning disability. Some staff had not had any training in alternative communication methods.
Right Culture:
¿ Systems for monitoring the culture of the service were limited. Audits that did address people’s experience of receiving support from Ordinary Living were not well established.
¿ There was a strong management team in place and staff told us they were well supported and able to access support and guidance when needed.
¿ Relatives were positive about the management of the service. During the inspection senior managers were open and transparent during the inspection process and demonstrated motivation to make improvements.
¿ Staff turnover was low, which supported people to receive consistent care from staff who knew them well.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 26 May 2022).
The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve.
At this inspection we found although the provider had met some of the previous breaches they remained in breach of regulations. This was in relation to the provision of care which reflected people's needs and preferences, and the oversight of the service.
Why we inspected
This inspection was carried out to follow up on action we told the provider to take at the last inspection.
You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.
Follow up
We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will meet with the provider following this report being published to discuss how they will make changes to ensure they improve their rating to at least good.