18 July 2011
During an inspection looking at part of the service
We met the registered manager on 5 August 2011 when she had made arrangements for us to visit some of the people using the service. We visited two houses where five people using the service live. We spoke to staff working in both these houses.
People using the service told us they were going out in the community and taking part in activities of their choice with the level of staff support they needed. People gave us examples of how they were becoming more independent.
People using the service all had a support plan in place. In some cases these did not cover all of their needs. Feedback showed that communication between the company and the other people involved in their lives could be improved.
The people using the service who we spoke with told us they liked the staff who supported them. We saw staff talking to people in a friendly, helpful and respectful way.
Information we gathered showed that some people had not always been provided with the one to one staff support that was arranged as part of their support package. The company told us that they had at all times provided all the commissioned support and they have at their own cost provided more support than they were required to in order to protect some service users.
Some people were being supported by staff who were working very long hours without breaks, which could have meant the staff were not able to respond to people's needs in the best way.
The company had not got well developed systems to check the quality of the service they were providing.