Aspirations Support Bristol provides domiciliary care services to people with a learning disability and, or a mental health condition, who live in their own homes, in the South Gloucestershire and Bristol area. They provide supported living support and personal care support to enable people to live independently without total reliance on parents or guardians. Aspirations Support Bristol are registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide the regulated activity Personal Care. Other services provided by the service do not come within our remit. At the time of this inspection five people were receiving personal care from the service.
There was a registered manager in post. There is a condition of registration that the regulated activity of personal care is managed by an individual who is registered with CQC as a manager. A registered manager has the legal responsibility for meeting the requirements of the law; as does the provider.
People were safe because they were looked after and supported by staff who had a real passion to ensure they were not harmed. Risk assessments and management plans were in place to reduce or eliminate any risks to people’s health and welfare that had been identified. When any new risks were identified further management plans were put in place.
Staff recruitment procedures were thorough and ensured that only suitable workers were employed to look after the vulnerable adults. All staff received safeguarding adults training to ensure they were familiar with safeguarding issues and knew what to do if concerns were raised.
People were provided with the support they needed to manage their medicines. Staff received training in the safe administration of medicines and managers checked regularly to ensure they remained competent to administer medicines. Changes were needed in the way that people were supported to reorder their medicines. People were living in their own homes but the staff were following residential care home procedures. There were no risks to people however people need to be supported individually.
People received the care and support from a team of staff who had the required skills, knowledge and personality to meet their particular needs. All staff completed a programme of essential training and also ‘person specific training’ based upon the needs of the person they were looking after.
People were unable to give consent to the care and support they were provided with. Mental capacity assessments had been completed as part of the overall assessment process. Where decisions needed to be made by others, best interest meetings had been held with other relevant parties. Agreements were made about how people needed to be looked after and how this support was to be provided.
People were supported to eat and drink and to maintain a healthy body weight. The level of support each person needed was detailed in their plan of care. People were supported to access health care services if needed.
People were supported by an identified team of staff to ensure good working relationships were established. This ensured people were cared for consistently as the staff knew them. People were treated with kindness and respect. Staff took account of people’s behaviours and used this as feedback and ‘having a say’ about how their care needs were to be met. People’s preferences and choices were respected.
The service was well-led and people, their families, guardians and others involved in their care were encouraged to provide feedback. The quality and safety of the service was regularly monitored and used to make improvements. The registered manager has an action plan in place to further drive improvements.