During an assessment under our new approach
Date of Assessment: 16 June to 28 June 2026. The service is a shared lives scheme. A shared lives scheme recruit, train and support self-employed Shared Lives carers who offer accommodation and support arrangements for people within their own family homes. This includes long term placements, short breaks and respite care. The service was registered to care for people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.
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. At the time of our inspection, they were supporting 20 people with personal care.
We assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted.
People were not consistently protected from the risk of harm because systems to safeguard them and manage risks were not effective. There were gaps in safeguarding oversight, risk assessment and risk management, with known risks not always being sufficiently mitigated.
Medicines systems did not consistently support safe, person-centred care in line with the provider policy. Care records did not always contain appropriate medicines guidance, increasing the risk of inconsistent support.
People did not always receive care and support that was delivered in line with the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Records did not consistently demonstrate people had provided informed consent to their care and support. Where concerns had been identified regarding a person's ability to make specific decisions, mental capacity assessments had not always been completed and records did not clearly evidence how decisions made on a person's behalf had been reached. This meant the provider could not be assured people's rights were consistently protected.
People were supported by Shared Lives carers who knew them well and treated them with kindness, dignity and respect. Feedback demonstrated Shared Lives carers had developed strong, long-standing relationships with people and understood their individual needs, preferences and personal histories. This helped to promote positive experiences and person-centred support.
Governance and oversight arrangements failed to identify and address concerns relating to safety, quality and compliance. Although the registered manager had recognised some areas requiring improvement, and had introduced some auditing and monitoring processes, these were still in the early stages of implementation and had not yet demonstrated a sustained impact. While there were signs of improvement and a commitment to driving change, further work was needed to embed systems and provide assurance that improvements would be sustained.
The provider was in breach of the legal regulation relating to Need for consent and Good governance at the service. In instances where CQC has begun a process of regulatory action, we may publish this information on our website after any representations and/or appeals have been concluded, if the action has been taken forward.