Archived: West Domiciliary

Updated 8 July 2017

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check 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.

This inspection was announced and took place on 15 May 2017. The inspection was carried out by two inspectors.

Before the inspection, the provider completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We reviewed other information available to us, such as notifications and information provided by the public or staff. A notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law.

During our inspection we spoke with three people who used at the service, the registered manager, a qualified nurse and two members of the care staff. We also spoke with three relatives of people using the service to ask for their feedback about the service.

We observed the interactions between members of staff and the people who used the service. We looked at the care records and risk assessments for three people using the service and how people’s medicines were managed.

We looked at three staff recruitment records. We also looked at training, supervision and appraisal records. We reviewed information on how the quality of the service, including the handling of complaints, was monitored and managed. We also looked at the on-call arrangements and how the staff rota was managed to support people.

Updated 8 July 2017

This inspection was carried out on 15 May 2017 and was announced. We gave the service notice of our inspection, so that people using the service could be contacted to determine if they wished to see us. This was the first time the service had been inspected.

West Supported is a domiciliary service providing personal care to people with learning disabilities. The service supports people to develop essential daily and community living skills. At the time of our inspection there were seven people using the service.

The service had a registered manager in post at the time of our inspection. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) 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.

The staff were aware of risk assessments and the safeguarding processes. Personalised risk assessments were in place to reduce the risk of harm to people and were reviewed regularly. Incidents were recorded and the causes of these analysed so that preventative action could be taken to reduce the likelihood of re-occurrences. People received their medicines as they had been prescribed and there were robust procedures for the safe management of medicines.

There were sufficiently skilled and knowledgeable staff on duty throughout the day to provide for people’s assessed needs. Staff worked in a flexible manner to support people on different times and different days to support people to meet their needs. Robust recruitment and selection processes were in place and the manager had taken steps to ensure that staff were suitable to work with people who used the service.

All staff received training to ensure that they had the necessary skills to care for and support the people who lived at the service and were supported by supervision and appraisals.

People’s needs had been assessed before they began to use the service and they, their relatives and other healthcare professionals had been involved as required, in determining their support needs. People’s consent was gained before any care was provided.

People using the service were supported to make choices about what they did and decide what food and drink they wished to consume. Staff had supported people by providing information about healthy living choices.

Other health professionals were consulted as necessary by the service staff to support people to meet their individual health needs.

Staff were understanding, empathic and protected people’s dignity. People were treated with respect and supported with regard to their individual needs.

On-going assessments of people’s needs were planned and were also arranged with immediate effect if so required. Information was available to people and relatives about how they could make a complaint should they need to do so. There were reviews of the care provided with the person and family members as appropriate.

Staff meetings were arranged, so that staff could discuss and be involved with the smooth running of the service. People and their relatives were asked for feedback about the service to enable improvements to be made. The service had a statement of purpose and an effective quality assurance system was in place to monitor and plan the future delivery of the service.