23 July 2015
During a routine inspection
This inspection took place on 23 and 28 July 2015 the first day of the inspection was unannounced.
The service is a care home without nursing and provides care and support for up to a maximum of five people who have either learning disabilities and/or complex care needs. On the day of our inspection there were two people living at the service.
The service has a registered manager. 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.
The staff had worked with and supported three people to develop the skills and experiences to move on from this care home service to other care establishments where they were able to live more independently. One person had moved to their own house where they now were supported by a domiciliary care service.
The staff had received training regarding how to keep people safe and they were aware of the service safeguarding and whistle-blowing policy and procedures.
Staffing was arranged in a flexible way to respond to people’s individual needs.
There were suitable arrangements in place for the safe storage, receipt and administration of people’s medicines. There were medication profiles for each person which provided staff with guidance as to people’s medical conditions, medicines that had been prescribed and for what reason. There was information about people’s allergies, how people chose to take their medicines and what staff should do if the person was unwell as a result of a known diagnosis.
People were provided with regular opportunities to express their needs, wishes and preferences regarding how they lived their daily lives. This included meetings with their social worker or designated member of staff who was their keyworker.
Each person was supported to access and attend a range of sheltered working, educational and social activities. People were supported by the staff to use the local community facilities and had been supported to develop skills which promoted their independence.
People’s needs were regularly assessed and resulting support plans provided guidance to staff on how people were to be supported. Support in planning people’s care, treatment and support was personalised to reflect people’s preferences and personalities. The service staff had worked with individuals, their families and other professionals to agree how support would be provided at the present time and planned for the future.
The staff had a clear knowledge of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. Meetings had been arranged in order to enable people’s best interest to be assessed when it had been identified that they lacked the capacity to consent to their care and treatment.
There was a robust staff recruitment process in operation designed to employ staff that would have or be able to develop the skills to keep people safe and support individuals to meet their needs.
Staff demonstrated a detailed knowledge of people’s needs and had received training to support people to be safe and respond to their support needs.
The service maintained daily records of how peoples support needs were meet and this included information about nutrition and medical appointments with GP’s and Dentists for example.
Staff respected people’s privacy and we saw staff working with people in a kind and compassionate way responding to their needs.
There was a complaints procedure for people, families and friends to use and compliments could also be recorded. Staff worked with people to identify any issues at the time and respond positively to resolve the situation and hence prevent this from developing into a complaint. We saw that the service took time to work with and understand people’s individual way of communicating in order that the service staff could respond appropriately to the individual.
The service carried out audits which included talking with the individuals living at the service, their families and other professionals to understand what the service was doing well and any improvements it could make. The manager and staff empowered people to be involved in making decisions about how the service provided support. The provider had quality monitoring systems in place of which the staff were familiar and confident to use to bring about improvements to the service which included the physical environment.