Walsingham Support - Supported Living West Cumbria

Updated 31 October 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 2 inspectors and 1 regulatory co-ordinator, who is a member of CQC operational support services.

Service and service type

Walsingham Support- Supported Living West Cumbria is a `domiciliary care service` which provides care and support to people living in ‘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 service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with CQC to manage the service. This means that they and the provider 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

This inspection was unannounced on the first day of inspection.

Inspection activity started on 21 June and ended on 11 July 2023. We visited the location’s office on 21 June.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We used information gathered as part of a CQC monitoring activity. We sought feedback from the local authorities and professionals that work with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. 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 used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We visited 5 houses and observed how staff interacted with people. We spoke with 7 people who used the service and 9 relatives about their experiences of the care provided.

We spoke with 17 staff including the nominated individual, regional manager, registered manager, scheme managers and support staff. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

We reviewed a range of records. This included people’s care records and medicine records and 5 staff recruitment files. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including action plans, policies and procedures were also reviewed.

Updated 31 October 2023

About the service

Walsingham Support- Supported Living West Cumbria is a domiciliary care service, providing personal care to people who may live with physical disability, mental health needs, learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder living in their own homes. The service supported people living across 26 houses in West and North Cumbria. Some people lived in their own houses. Other people lived in shared houses, where they had their own bedrooms and shared facilities such as communal areas, bathrooms and kitchens.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. The Care Quality Commission (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 our inspection the service supported 56 people with personal care.

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:

Whilst people felt safe with the staff supporting them, we found further work was needed to ensure safeguarding concerns were identified by staff, raised appropriately and shared with relevant organisations. We have made a recommendation about this.

People had busy diaries of fulfilling and meaningful actives. This included working in charities in their local communities, pursuing chosen hobbies and taking part in sporting activities. People eagerly spoke of their achievements and were proud of these.

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

Right Care:

Staff were kind and compassionate. Support staff treated people with dignity and respect. People were supported in a person-centred way that reflected their individual choices and enjoyed positive and meaningful interactions with staff.

Right Culture:

The provider did not always have effective systems and processes in place to support the delivery of high-quality care. Issues with the provider’s IT systems meant full, accurate and up to date information about people’s care needs was not always recorded in one place. This put people at risk of harm.

People were supported by skilled staff whose values, attitudes and behaviours empowered people to achieve their goals. Staff encouraged teamwork between people and a sense of empowerment to take individual and collective decisions in relation to their home surroundings.

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 29 May 2019).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

We carried out an unannounced focused inspection on 21 June 2023. We inspected the Safe and Well-led key questions. For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

The overall rating for the service is requires improvement, based on the findings at this inspection.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the Safe and Well-led key section of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Walsingham Support- Supported Living Services West Cumbria on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement and Recommendations

We have identified a breach in relation to good governance at this the service. Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

We have made a recommendation about safeguarding and CQC notifications.

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 work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.