Muslyt Ltd

Muslyt Ltd is a domiciliary care agency and supported living service providing personal care to people in their own homes. People live in the community in single or shared accommodation. Staff provide onsite 24-hour care. People receiving support are living with a learning disability, and or autism, and some people have a physical disability and health conditions.

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. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of the inspection, 7 people were receiving the regulated activity of personal care.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Right Support:

People received care from a regular team of staff who understood and met people's needs.

People were supported to maintain contact with their relatives. Staff enabled and encouraged people to take part in the activities they enjoyed. People were encouraged to have active and fulfilling lives.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

People who experienced anxiety or emotional distress were supported by kind staff who followed detailed plans to help people manage their emotions safely.

Right Care:

People’s care plans were regularly reviewed and updated regularly or as people’s needs changed.

Staff understood their responsibilities to protect people from poor care and potential harm. The service worked with other agencies to do so. Staff had received training on how to recognise and report abuse and this knowledge was discussed at staff supervisions.

Staff supported people to access health and social care support, which included a regular review of their prescribed medicines. Staff supported people with their medicines safely. Staff liaised with local health care providers to ensure people’s emotional and sensory needs for planned appointments was considered.

Right Culture:

The provider continued to develop their systems to monitor the quality and standards of the service. The registered manager continually looked for ways to learn from incidents and feedback to improve the service.

People’s care was regularly reviewed to ensure the care provided met their current needs. People’s dignity and human rights were promoted, and people were encouraged to make decisions about their day to day routines.

Staff felt well supported and said communication was effective and the management team were always available to discuss any concerns.

Staff were safely recruited. All staff received an induction and ongoing training to ensure they could meet people’s needs. Staff received training and information in relation to the management and best practice guidance for infection prevention and control.

The staff worked well with external agencies and health and social care professionals, in supporting people with their ongoing care and support needs.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for the service was rated Requires Improvement (published on 3 May 2019).

At the last inspection the provider was in breach of three regulations. We imposed conditions on their registration asking them to submit reports to demonstrate their compliance with staff recruitment and consent to care. At this inspection we have removed these imposed conditions because the provider demonstrated they had improved their care standards and were compliant with the legal requirements.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

The overall rating for the service has changed from Requires Improvement to Good based on the findings of this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Mulyst Ltd on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Swale Drive (Muslyt Ltd) is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care for people living in their own houses and flats. It provides a service to older adults and younger disabled adults.

People’s experience of using this service:

¿Recruitment practices did not ensure that staff were safe to work with vulnerable people before they started to care for them.

¿People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and it was not clear when people lacked capacity to make a decision for themselves.

¿ Systems to monitor and improve the quality of the service provided were insufficient.

¿Care plans did not always contain accurate or up to date information.

¿People received care from staff who were kind and caring. Staff had developed positive relationships with people and had a good understanding of their needs and preferences.

Rating at last inspection:

Requires Improvement (report published 14th February 2018).

Why we inspected:

This was a planned inspection based on the rating at the last inspection.

Enforcement:

At this inspection, we found the service to be in breach of three regulations of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated activities) Regulations 2014.

Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to the more serious concerns found in inspections and appeals is added to reports after any concerns found in inspections and appeals have been concluded.

Follow up:

We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. Should further concerns arise we may inspect sooner.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

This was our first inspection of the service since they registered with us in September 2016. This service had been supporting people for approximately three months.

There was 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 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.

Recruitment practices were not robust and had not been consistently followed to ensure staff employed were suitable for their role. We observed that essential employment checks for some staff had not been obtained.

We have made a recommendation about recruitment policies and procedures.

Care staff did not receive a comprehensive induction and adequate training to ensure they had the right skills to effectively deliver care to people.

People felt safe when staff supported them within their home and there were sufficient numbers of staff to support people. People were protected from harm by staff who knew how to report any concerns. Assessments of the risks to people's safety were in place and regularly reviewed.

The principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) were considered when supporting people. People were supported and encouraged to follow a healthy and balanced diet. People's day to day health needs were met effectively by the staff.

People and their families had formed good relationships with the staff that cared and supported them. There was a complaints policy in place which people who used the service and their relatives knew how to access.

People were treated with respect and dignity and they were involved with decisions made about their care and support. Information was available for people if they wished to speak with an independent advocate. People were supported to live as independently as possible.

People had plans of care in place which contained details of people’s preferences, life histories and support that people required.