Archived: The Mayfield Trust Outreach Service

The last inspection took place on 28 & 29 June and 13 July 2016. At that time, we found the provider was not meeting the regulations in relation to good governance and staff training. We returned on this inspection to check improvements had been made.

The Mayfield Trust is an independent charity providing a range of care and support services to children, young people and adults with learning disabilities and other complex needs. The services provided include supporting people to join in community based activities and personal care. At the time of the inspection personal care was only being provided to ten people, which is the part of the service the Commission regulates.

There was a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission 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.

The service primarily supported children and adults to pursue a range of activities in the community, for example, swimming, bowling, wall climbing, play gyms, parks and visits to local places of interest. They had two mini buses and people using the service went out in groups supported by staff. The service operated at weekends and if people required support with their personal care in order to access this service this was provided by care workers.

There were enough staff to support people and meet their needs. Safe recruitment procedures were in place, which ensured only staff who were suitable to work in the service were employed.

People told us their relatives received a reliable service from a consistent team of care workers who were kind and caring. Staff were able to offer support with medicines, meals and healthcare appointments if these services were required. People had their own individualised care plan, which was reviewed on an annual basis or as and when their needs changed.

Safeguarding policies and procedures were in place and staff were aware of the need to report anything untoward in order to keep people safe.

There were policies and procedures in place in relation to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and Deprivations of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS).

Staff training was not up to date but this had been identified through one of the service’s own audits and plans had been put in place to address this.

A complaints procedure was in place and we saw when concerns had been raised these had been responded to and resolved.

We found some quality audit systems had been introduced but these were still in their infancy and needed to be tested over time to see how effective they were.

The last inspection took place on 26 July 2013 and at that time the service was meeting all of the regulations we looked at.

The Mayfield Trust is an independent charity providing a range of care and support services to children, young people and adults with learning disabilities and other complex needs. The services provided include supporting people to join in community based activities and personal care. At the time of the inspection personal care was only being provided to seven people, which is the part of the service the Commission regulates.

There was a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission 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.

We spoke with the relatives of five of the people who were using the service. Four were highly satisfied with the service and the care and support which was being provided. One relative told us they were satisfied with the current service but told us they had raised a series of concerns about one member of staff, about a year ago, which they did not feel had been responded to by the registered manager.

We found there was a complaints procedure in place but this had not always been followed by the registered manager, which meant the concerns the relative raised had not been responded to in a robust and adequate way.

Staff told us they received training and felt supported in their role. We found staff had not always received enough training to support people with complex care needs and there was no formal system to assess individual care workers competencies.

Staff understood how to keep people safe, but the safeguarding policy had not always been followed.

There were enough staff to support people and meet their needs. Safe recruitment procedures were in place, which ensured only staff who were suitable to work in the service were employed

There were policies and procedures in place in relation to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and Deprivations of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS).

People told us their relatives received a reliable service from a consistent team of carers who were kind and caring.

Person centred care plans were in place and people told us they had been involved in formulating these with their relative. However, we found care plans did not always contain all of the necessary information to deliver care safely. We saw care plans were reviewed annually unless changes were required in the interim.

We found there were no robust procedures in place to monitor the quality of the service and staff were not always following the organisations policies and procedures. We found checks being made on the overall operation and quality of the service were poor and were not identifying areas which required improvement and could potentially leave people at risk of not receiving safe care..

We identified two breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 and you can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.

'My child likes the carers and I am more than happy with the service.'

'It's a brilliant service, my child loves the carers.'

'I am very satisfied with the service; we have regular carers that we know.'

We found that parents had been involved in developing care plans and risk assessments and had given their consent for staff to deliver care and support outlined within those plans.

We found that there were enough staff available to deliver care and support. Parents confirmed that staff were reliable and knew what they were doing.

We found that infection prevention policies and procedures were in place and that staff had personal protective equipment available to be used.

We found that there was a complaints policy in place and that people knew how to complain if the need arose.