Essential Care and Support Ltd

Updated 17 November 2023

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by two inspectors and an expert by experience. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type

Essential Care and Support Limited is a domiciliary care agency based in Seaham. This service provides care and support to people living in 12 ‘supported living’ settings, so that they can live as independently as possible. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations. At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service short notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be at the office to support the inspection. We also wanted to gain consent from people to visit them in their own homes. Inspection activity started on 18 October 2023 and ended on 31 October 2023. We visited the location’s office/service on 23 October 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We contacted the local authority for any information or concerns they had about the service. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

During the inspection we met and spoke with 9 people who used the service. We spoke with 10 staff members including the registered manager, service managers and support staff. After the inspection visit, we spoke with a further 3 support workers on the telephone. We also spoke on the telephone with 9 relatives about the care their family members received.

We reviewed a range of records. This included people’s care and medication records. We looked at staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including risk assessments and procedures were reviewed.

After the inspection visit we continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found. We looked at training data and quality assurance records.

Updated 17 November 2023

About the service

Essential Care and Support service provides care and support to people living in one ‘supported living’ setting, so that they can live as independently as possible. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people; respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Right Support: People were supported to have choice about their daily lives. Not everyone being cared for expressed their needs verbally. The staff and the registered manager had a good understanding of people's responses and non-verbal communication. Staff had worked with people for a considerable time and knew them extremely well, including their likes and dislikes and personal preferences. People were able to access the community, if they wished and were supported to maintain good contact with their families.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Right Care: Care was person centred and staff supported people to achieve their ambitions and live their best life possible. Staff spoke with understanding about the people they supported. People were treated with dignity and respect and staff had an in depth understanding of the person and the support they needed.

Right Culture: People led inclusive and empowered lives because of the ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of the management and staff. People’s care, treatment and support plans had clear guidance on what people’s goals and aspirations were. The service enabled people and those important to them to work with staff to develop the service. Staff valued and acted upon people’s views. We received positive feedback from people and their family members about the service. Staff members were positive about working at the service and felt supported by the manager and the provider.

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 good (Published 1 May 2018).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service and due to the length of time since the previous inspection. For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Essential Care and Support on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

We have made recommendations about medicine records and audits regarding ‘as and when required’ medicines.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.