Background to this inspection
Updated
3 March 2020
The inspection
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team
The inspection was undertaken by an adult social care inspector.
Service and service type
The Adult Placement Service is a shared lives scheme. They recruit, train and support self-employed shared lives carers (SLC) who offer accommodation and support arrangements for vulnerable adults within their own family homes in the community.
The service had a registered manager. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
Notice of inspection
This was an announced inspection which took place over one day on 10 February 2020. We announced the inspection as we had to plan interviews with people using the service and to ensure key staff where present when we visited the agency offices.
What we did
Our planning considered information the provider sent us since the last inspection. This included information about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as abuse or other concerns. We requested information from the local authority commissioners who work with the service.
The provider completed a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.
We made some phone calls to relatives of people using the service to gain feedback. On 10 February we visited two of the carers in the community and met with people they were supporting. We also visited the offices of the agency to speak with the managers and key staff as well as inspect records.
In total, we spoke with six people using the service and three family members to ask about their experience of care. We also spoke with the registered manager and other senior managers and two of the shared lives carers.
We looked at three people’s care records and a selection of other records including quality monitoring records, training records and staff records.
Updated
3 March 2020
The Adult Placement 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. There were 34 people being supported at the time of the inspection.
Not everyone who used the service received personal care. 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
People told us they were settled and happy with the service provided by the Adult Placement Service. They told they received their medicines when needed and staff supported them well.
Arrangements were in place for checking carers home environment to help ensure it was safe and any obvious hazards were assessed, and plans put in place to reduce the risk.
People told us that staff had the skills and approach needed to help ensure they were receiving the right care. The service was continuing to build a solid staff team and were looking to build the service further. The service was staffed appropriately and consistently and care was taken to ‘match’ people to carers that could provide the best support; this helped to develop positive relationships with people.
People told us that they felt safe when being supported and no-one raised any concerns about their care; one relative commented, “I feel reassured by [the service] and [person] loves going; its brilliant.”
There were a series of quality assurance processes and audits carried out internally and externally by staff and managers on behalf of the provider. These were effective in monitoring the quality of the service. Feedback was gathered from the people being supported and their relatives as well as carers.
The formal assessment and planning of people’s care in care records had been reviewed and regularly updated. Records reviewed contained very good detail of people’s care needs and evidenced their involvement in the planning of their care.
Carers we spoke with described how they would recognise abuse and the action they would take to ensure actual or potential harm was reported. Carers were regularly updated with necessary training.
People were supported to have choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests when required; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
Rating at last inspection:
The last rating for this service was Good (published 15 July 2017).
Why we inspected:
This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.
Follow up:
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk