North East Autism Society

North East Autism Society provides care and support to people living in 19 ‘supported living’ settings where people are supported to live as independently as possible in their own accommodation. 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. At the time of our inspection there were 29 people using the service who had a learning disability and or autism.

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.

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

Right Support:

Appropriate guidance was not always in place for medicines administration. We have made a recommendation about this.

Staff supported people to play an active role in maintaining their own health and wellbeing. Staff did everything they could to avoid restraining people. The service recorded when staff restrained people, and staff learned from those incidents and how they might be avoided or reduced. This work was being continuously developed and new software was being introduced to improve the analysis of data and share best practice with staff. People were supported by staff to pursue their interests. Staff focused on people’s strengths and promoted what they could do, so people had a fulfilling and meaningful everyday life.

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:

People received kind and compassionate care which supported their needs and focused on their quality of life. 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. The service worked well with other agencies to do so. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it. The service had enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe. There was an ongoing recruitment campaign to minimise the use of agency staff. People could communicate with staff and understand information given to them because staff supported them consistently and understood their individual communication needs.

Right Culture:

People led inclusive and empowered lives because of the ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of the management and staff. People and those important to them, including advocates, were involved in planning their care. Staff ensured risks of a closed culture were minimised so that people received support based on transparency, respect and inclusivity.

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 13 September 2019).

Why we inspected

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

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 North East Autism Society on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

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

At our last inspection we rated the service good. At this inspection we found the evidence continued to support the rating of good. There was no evidence or information from our inspection and ongoing monitoring that demonstrated serious risks or concerns. This inspection report is written in a shorter format because our overall rating of the service has not changed since our last inspection.

North East Autism Society provides care and support to people living in 11 ‘supported living’ settings of two to three tenants so that they can live as independently as possible in their own accommodation. 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. At the time of our inspection there were 21 people using the service who had a learning disability and or autism.

The care service has been developed and designed in line with the values that underpin the Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. These values include choice, promotion of independence and inclusion. People with learning disabilities and autism using the service can live as ordinary a life as any citizen.

The service had a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the CQC to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Staff were trained in areas that providers are expected to deliver such as, safeguarding, first aid, the Mental Capacity Act and infection control. Additional training was in place or planned in areas specific to people’s individual needs.

Effective procedures were in place for managing medicines and we found that all aspects of medicines management, storage, administration and recording were safe.

People were supported to have choice and control over their own lives and staff support them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

People were being supported by person centred care. Person centred care is when the person is central to their support and their preferences are respected. Care plans were person centred regarding people’s preferences and were updated regularly.

Accidents and incidents were monitored by the registered manager to highlight any trends and to ensure appropriate referrals to other healthcare professionals were made if needed.

A programme of audits was carried out by the registered manager which were effective at improving the service.

People who used the service were regularly asked for their views about the support they received and this was recorded and acted upon. People’s relatives and other healthcare professionals were asked for their views via questionnaires or feedback forms.

People were supported to take risks safely and personalised risk assessments were in place to ensure these were reduced.

Staff recruitment was carried out safely with robust safety checks in place for new staff.

People were supported to maintain their independence by staff that understood and valued the importance of this. People had planned goals and were supported to achieve them.

People and their relatives could complain if they wished and knew how to complain or raise minor concerns.

Assistive technology was in use in people’s homes and people were supported to use this for communication. People were supported to access information in a variety of formats to suit their needs.

People were supported to take part in a wide range of activities at home and in the wider community as active citizens and to suit their individual preferences.

People’s rights were valued and people were treated with equality, dignity and respect.

North East Autism Society provides personal care and support to people who live in supported living houses across the north east. On the day of our inspection there were 19 people using the service.

North East Autism Society had a registered manager in place. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

North East Autism Society was last inspected by CQC on 13 December 2013 and was compliant.

There were sufficient numbers of staff in order to meet the needs of people who used the service. The provider had an effective recruitment and selection procedure in place and carried out relevant checks when they employed staff.

Thorough investigations had been carried out in response to safeguarding incidents or allegations and accidents or incidents.

People were protected against the risks associated with the unsafe use and management of medicines.

Staff training was mostly up to date however some refresher training was due.

Staff received regular supervisions and appraisals, which meant that staff were properly supported to provide care to people who used the service.

People were protected from the risk of poor nutrition.

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) provides a legal framework for making particular decisions on behalf of people who may lack the mental capacity to do so for themselves. The Act requires that as far as possible people make their own decisions and are helped to do so when needed. When they lack mental capacity to take particular decisions, any made on their behalf must be in their best interests and as least restrictive as possible.

People can only be deprived of their liberty to receive care and treatment when this is in their best interests and legally authorised under the MCA. We found the service was working within the principles of the MCA.

People who used the service, and family members, were complimentary about the standard of care at North East Autism Society.

Staff treated people with dignity and respect and helped to maintain people’s independence by encouraging them to care for themselves where possible.

The home had a full programme of activities in place for people who used the service.

Care records were written in a person centred way.

The provider had a complaints policy and procedure in place and people who used the service, and family members, knew how to make a complaint.

The service had a positive culture that was person-centred, open and inclusive.

The service had links with the community and other organisations.

The provider had a robust quality assurance system in place and gathered information about the quality of their service from a variety of sources.

We talked with four relatives. They had positive comments about the service. One relative told us, 'They certainly meet his needs very well and at the times he needs support.' Another relative commented, 'Staff understand his needs really well. They know exactly how to help him and they look after him very well.'

The agency made sure there were sufficient staff available to meet people's individual activities and needs. The people we spoke with said they 'liked' the staff and we saw staff were well trained to support people with their individual needs.

The agency provided some information about its service for people. We saw the provider checked the quality of the service, and involved people and their relatives in reviews about the care service.

There was a copy of the complaints procedure in easy-read and pictures to help people understand it. There had been no complaints in the last year.