Archived: Highfields

Highfields Shared Lives is a shared lives placement service, which recruits and supports paid carers to provide family based placements for adults with learning disabilities within the carer’s home. Placements can be long-term with the adult living with the carer as part of their family, or as respite care which can range from a few hours a week, overnight or longer stays. On some occasions the service can provide an emergency service offering placements to people who find themselves in a crisis situation. At the time of our inspection there were over 90 people referred to the scheme and there were 73 carers.

At the last inspection 22 November 2013 we found the registered provider had met the regulatory requirements.

At the time of our inspection the service had moved locations and was in the process of registering the new location. A new manager had been appointed and they had submitted their application to become 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.

Carers we spoke to were very positive about the service. They felt they were well supported by the Shared Lives team. We found they had undergone a robust selection procedure and had been approved by a panel before they could commence providing care for a person referred to the scheme.

People had in place Service User Plans and Risk Assessments (SUPRAs) which described their needs and how these were to be met. SUPRA’s covered issues such as people’s physical and mental health, people’s communication styles and road safety issues. Carers were able to tell us about the content of people’s plans and they demonstrated they knew people well.

Relatives and carers told us they felt safe in the service. We saw carers had received training in safeguarding issues. They were aware of the risks to people and knew what actions to take to keep people safe.

Carer were familiar with people’s medicines and were able to describe to us the arrangements for giving people their medicines in line with their care plan.

We saw carers had received training in first aid. Carers told us they had also received training from a variety of other professionals to meet people’s needs. The manager told us bespoke training was arranged for each carer to ensure carers were able to meet people’s needs.

Carers had been given guidance and support regarding people’s eating and drinking needs, food to avoid and when to encourage a healthy diet and monitor people’s alcohol intake. This meant carer’s were aware of people’s nutritional needs.

We saw people accessed a range of activities including day centre attendance, local swimming and leisure facilities, horse riding as well as local facilities for example parks and gardens. Carers took people on holidays.

We found the service was caring. Carers spoke to us with warmth and affection about the people they cared for. We also found carers were able to support people to try new things irrespective of their disability.

The service adhered to the Mental Capacity Act and ensured people’s capacity was assessed to make decisions. We found relatives, carers and other professionals were involved in making decisions in people’s best interests.

The staff team were complimentary about the manager. They felt the manager was supporting the team to make progress them in the right direction. Since coming into post the manager had made a number of changes to the service to ensure systems in place were streamlined and worked together. They had ensured they had seen people’s care plans and signed them off.

The service had in place an updated Statement of Purpose which accurately described the service and the expectations of those involved in it. This meant people were clear about what was required of them.

The Registered Provider had introduced a new computerised system. The Shared Lives team were in the process of transferring information into the new system whilst ensuring records were up to date.

The Shared Lives team had a plan to recruit more carers. We saw new publicity had been developed which had included a family who used the service. Information giving meetings had been set up to give prospective carers an opportunity to look at becoming a Shared Lives carer. The service had put plans in place to utilise a new assessment approach for carers using the UK Network Shared Lives Plus approach which in turn would support the new requirement for carers to complete the Care Certificate. This is a course designed to give people knew to the care workforce a chance to learn about their chosen profession to nationally agreed standards.

We saw the Shared Lives team was able to access and worked in partnership with other disability services to support carers and enable them to meet people’s needs for example in providing the right equipment or activities.

We looked at four people's care records which were held electronically at Highfields. The manager told us that carer's also kept a copy of the persons care plans and risk assessments in their home where care is provided.