10 March 2016
During a routine inspection
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At the time of our inspection a registered manager was not in place at the service. 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.
Staff were acting in accordance with the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act. They demonstrated how they supported people to make decisions about their care and where they were unable to do so decisions were being taken in their best interests.
There were sufficient numbers of staff to assist people with their care and support needs. However the amount of agency staff being used in some locations had caused some concerns regarding inconsistencies in care and approach. Care and support plans were in place to provide staff with guidance to meet people’s individual care needs but risk assessments did not provide sufficient detail on how risks were to be managed and minimised. This meant that people were at a risk of not being protected from inappropriate or unsafe care.
Staff assisted people in a kind, caring and sensitive way and were trained to provide care which met people’s individual needs and wishes. Staff understood their roles and responsibilities. They were supported to maintain and develop their skills and knowledge through supervision, and ongoing training.
People and their relatives felt able to raise suggestions or concerns they might have with the care and support being provided by the service. People felt listened to and reported that communication with members of staff was very good.
There were arrangements in place to monitor the day to day management of the service. People who used the service and their relatives were encouraged to share their views about the quality of the care and support provided. However, the provider did not have an effective quality assurance system in place to monitor the quality of the services provided for people.
We found one breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.