Wiltshire Council Shared Lives Service

Wiltshire Council Shared Lives Service is a shared lives scheme which provides people with long-term placements, short breaks and respite care, within shared lives carers (SLC) own homes. 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.

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

Risk assessments were completed to support people to be as independent as possible. Shared lives carers demonstrated a good understanding of risk management plans and the actions they needed to take to support people to stay safe.

People were supported to safely take any medicines they were prescribed. The support people needed was regularly reviewed to ensure people were as independent as possible. Carers kept accurate records of the support they provided people to take their medicines.

The provider had good systems to match people with a shared lives carer. People were involved throughout this process, to ensure it was the right place for them to live.

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

Right Care

People and their relatives told us they felt safe and received good care. We saw people interacting with shared lives carers, shared lives officers and the registered manager in a confident and comfortable way. People appeared at ease in the presence of staff.

The provider worked with other health and social care professionals to ensure people received the care they need. People were supported to be as independent as possible with their care.

Right culture

The registered manager had promoted a person-centred approach in the service. This was evidenced through the content of staff meetings, support sessions for staff and the training staff received. Shared lives carers said the registered manager was focused on ensuring people received a good service.

The provider had systems to assess and monitor the quality of the service being provided.

Shared lives carers told us they felt listened to and valued by the registered manager.

People were supported to be active members of their community and participate in local activities.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 8 July 2020, and this is the first inspection.

The last rating for the service at the previous premises was good, published on 5 September 2017.

Why we inspected

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

Follow up

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