Archived: Precious Homes Birmingham

At the time of our inspection visit the service was supplying care and support to four people who were in supported living accommodation. The services offices were within the building of the supported accommodation but separate to it.

There was a registered manager in post. 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.

People told us that they felt safe with the staff providing their support. There was good suitable information to support people to remain safe and to report any concerns. Staff were aware of the need to report any safeguarding concerns and there were good whistle-blowing systems in place.

Risks to people’s health and well-being were identified and detailed instructions were available to staff to minimise these risks. Staff were recruited appropriately and staff and people told us there were sufficient numbers of staff to meet people’s needs day to day. Staff supported people to take their medicines helping to keep them safe and well.

Staff working in this service understood the health and social care needs of the people for whom they provided care. People told us that staff supported them appropriately, however the provider was unable to show that there were sufficient appropriately trained staff at all times.

The registered manager and staff we spoke with understood the need to protect people’s rights and restrictions were only placed on people by legal means. People were empowered by information about their rights, including the right to refuse treatment, and what attitudes and behaviours they should expect from staff.

People were supported with their health care appointments when wanted and information was available to health professionals. People were involved in planning their care and making choices about their leisure time and recently had been involved in supporting other people in the community.

There was evidence that the registered manager had acted upon feedback from individual people who used the service and there were regular opportunities for people to express their views. The provider ensured that they acted upon recommendations from commissioners of the service. The provider arranged for the service to have an independent review and we saw that improvements had been made as a result of this review.

Although care records had improved as a result of recommendations, further work was needed to ensure that managerial records improved to aid the day to day planning.

We spoke with one social care and one health professional that worked with the people who used the service. Amongst their comments were: "We are continuing to work with the provider to find more supported living places" and "They have worked well with the person I am involved with. The person appears settled and happy." We saw good interactions between the people who used the service and the staff and manager throughout the inspection.

People had care plans. We saw that the service was undertaking a process to make these plans more individual to the person and in an easy read format. Risks were identified and plans were put in place to keep people as safe as possible. Risk assessments were updated when incidents occurred so that known risks could be appropriately managed.

We checked the staffing levels against the level of staffing requested by the commissioners of the service. We found that the service was using these hours in a flexible way to meet the needs of the people who used the service. Two of the people told us the staff were good. One person thought that staff were generally good but one got "Moody." There were appropriate systems in place to identify when people were unhappy and to try and resolve their concerns.