Avalon Northallerton Services

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence.

At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has remained good. This meant people’s outcomes were consistently good, and people’s feedback confirmed this.

This service scored 71 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The provider made sure people’s care and treatment was effective by assessing and reviewing their health, care, wellbeing and communication needs with them. People’s support plans were up to date, and people and those important to them were actively involved in reviewing these. One relative told us, “We do get involved in updates and documents with any changes. We are happy with the frequency of these.”

The provider planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. They did this in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards. The provider and the registered manager pro-actively engaged with professionals’ workshops, forums and meetings, to ensure they remained up to date with best practice guidance and new learning.

The provider worked well across teams and services to support people. People were supported to access other services such as day care services and charities supporting people with learning disabilities to develop and gain new skills and employment.

Professionals fed back positively about their work with the provider, the registered manager and the staff team. Feedback included, “They are great at working in partnership with organisations, like ours, who share support for their clients. We also have good communication between us all and the social workers,” and “We have an open and honest 2-way dialogue with Avalon; they work with us to support the service users.”

Staff worked well together and communicated key information through communication files, handovers and daily notes.

The provider supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control.

Staff were vigilant around people’s health needs and any small changes in people’s presentation. Staff sought medical assistance promptly and worked in partnership with other professionals to effectively support people through very difficult times such as significant illnesses. Staff put people’s needs first, advocated for people where needed, obtained all relevant information needed to support people through illness, and ensured care, treatment and support was tailored to the individual’s needs. Staff were given clear information as to how to spot possible deteriorations in people’s health and wellbeing and any changes were acted on immediately.

The provider routinely monitored people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. They ensured that outcomes were positive and consistent, and that they met both clinical expectations and the expectations of people themselves.

The support provided by staff had enabled people to build independence and there were several examples of people’s support needs reducing under the care of the provider, as people thrived under the approach of the staff team.

Positive outcomes were evident, although recording around people’s goals, aims and aspirations was not always as comprehensive as the work actually undertaken by staff. The provider had identified this as a piece of work to review documentation in this area.

The provider and the staff team told people about their rights around consent and respected these when delivering person-centred care and treatment. Where people were assessed as lacking capacity to consent to their care and treatment, appropriate assessments had been completed. However, legal documentation was not always up to date. Although this was not directly the responsibility of the service, the provider did not have robust oversight of this. Systems to improve oversight of this were implemented immediately following our feedback.

We found one restrictive practice which, although was in the best interests of the person, was potentially intrusive. Documentation around this practice was not comprehensive or reviewed regularly. The provider reviewed this immediately following our feedback.