- Homecare service
Access for Living
Assessment report published 30 April 2025
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of Assessment: 19 November and 20 November 2024. Access for Living is a domiciliary care service which provides personal care to autistic people and people with a learning disability living in their own homes. At the time of the inspection 4 people were receiving support with personal care. We assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. The provider was in breach of legal regulations relating to good governance. Risks to people's health and wellbeing and medicines were not always managed. The provider did not always carry out capacity assessments when they had reason to believe people lacked capacity to make decisions about their care. The provider’s quality assurance processes had not identified the issues we found in relation to risk management, medicines and mental capacity assessments. We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment. Staffing levels were sufficient to maintain people's safety and ensure their health and social needs were met. People and their relatives were involved in the assessment and ongoing review of their needs. People’s communication, personal and health needs were considered and person-centred plans put in place to meet these. People were treated with kindness and compassion by well trained staff that knew them well. People were supported to access the local community in line with their personal preferences and interests and their independence was promoted. Leaders and care staff ensured people led confident, inclusive and empowered lives. The provider worked in partnership with other health and social care professionals.
People's experience of this service
We made calls to people’s relatives to gather their view of the service as people could not directly tell us about their experience of the care they received. Relatives were positive about the quality of the care being delivered and the caring and compassionate attitudes of the staff team. They told us staff respected and catered for people’s needs and preferences. Staff supported people to access the community and stay as active and engaged as possible. People’s relatives also told us people were given many opportunities to give feedback about their care.