Walsingham Support - Supported Living Doncaster

Walsingham Support Supported Living South Yorkshire is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people living in their own homes, also known as supported living. At the time of our inspection, 31 people were using the service across eight supported living services.

People’s experience of the 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 assessment and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Right Support

People received person centred support and the management team and staff ensured people were enjoying their lives.

Risks associated with people’s care were identified and actions were taken to minimise risk and keep people safe. People received their medicines as prescribed by staff who were trained and competent in the safe handling of medicines.

Accidents and incidents were recorded and analysed to ensure risks were identified and mitigated and lessons were learnt.

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.

Right Care

The atmosphere in supported living services we visited was welcoming and homely. People were involved in aspects of their life.

People told us the enjoyed living in the supported living services and felt staff were kind, caring and supported them well. Relatives were complimentary about the support and care their family member received.

Right Culture

Several activities and social events took place to ensure people had the opportunity to lead a fulfilling life.

Systems in place to monitor the service were effective and instrumental in identifying concerns and taking appropriate actions.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was Requires Improvement (published 12 November 2021).

The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvement had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected

When we last inspected Walsingham Supported Living – Supported Living Doncaster, breaches of legal requirements were found. This inspection was undertaken to check whether they were now meeting the legal requirements.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Walsingham Supported Living – Supported Living Doncaster on our website at www.cqc.org.uk

Follow Up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

Walsingham Support Supported Living South Yorkshire is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people living in their own homes, also known as supported living. The service supports 25 people across eight supported living services. 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.

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

People were not always safe from abuse, staff training and practice needed to be improved.

People did not always receive safe care. We identified some unmanaged risks such as shortfalls in practice when supporting people who had dietary requirements guidelines.

Audits needed to be strengthened and embedded into practice to ensure they picked up and addressed shortfalls such as the ones found on this inspection.

Registered managers needed to ensure they were reporting all concerns to CQC in line with their statutory duty.

Staff training and supervision was not up to date in line with the providers policy.

Record keeping needed to be completed consistently to ensure health needs were being met.

People and relatives said staff were kind and caring but improvements needed to be made to ensure people were given choice and control of community and in house activities.

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.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right Support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.

We recommended the provider follow best practice guidelines such as the principles of Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture.

Right support:

• Model of care and setting maximises people’s choice, control and independence but this could have been improved for some individuals who had not been given maximum choice.

Right care:

• Care is person-centred and promotes people’s dignity, privacy and human rights

Right culture:

• Ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and care staff need to improve to ensure people using services lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives

The provider has recognised that supported living services are not consistent in their approach to meeting to requirements of Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture and are providing additional support to drive improvements, such as additional training for staff.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 27/10/2019 and this is the first rated inspection.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led domains.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

The provider told us what action they would be taking to drive improvements across the supported living services under the registration.

We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection. We will continue to monitor the service.

We have identified breaches in relation to safe care and treatment, governance and safeguarding, at this inspection.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.

Supported Living South Yorkshire is registered to provide personal care to people with a range of disabilities, such as learning disabilities and/or autism, mental health needs and physical disabilities. At the time of inspection 21 people were receiving support from the service. The office is based in Doncaster.

The service has been developed and designed in line with the principles and values that underpin Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. This ensures that people who use the service can live as full a life as possible and achieve the best possible outcomes. The principles reflect the need for people with learning disabilities and/or autism to live meaningful lives that include control, choice, and independence. People using the service receive planned and co-ordinated person-centred support that is appropriate and inclusive for them. The outcomes for people using the service reflected the principles and values of Registering the Right Support by promoting choice and control, independence and inclusion. People's support focused on them having as many opportunities as possible for them to gain new skills and become more independent.

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

People told us they felt safe with the staff who supported them. The service was person centred and risks were well managed. For instance, people’s medicines were managed safely. Staff received training in moving and handling techniques for assisting people safely. The provider made sure infection control processes helped keep people safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff had a good understanding of how to safeguard people from abuse. Staff recruitment procedures were robust and there were enough staff to care for people safely.

We received positive feedback about the management and leadership from people we spoke with including staff, people using the service and other professionals. Appropriate governance and quality assurance systems were in place to monitor the service effectively. Staff told us there was an emphasis on treating people with respect and dignity, and promoting their independence. It was evident that the team worked well in partnership with other professionals to provide a person centred service that met people’s 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 service registered with CQC under a different registration and provider, Walsingham Support in May 2019. Therefore, this was the first time we had carried out an inspection of this service under the current registration.

Why we inspected

The service had not received an inspection since registration and we were made aware of concerns in relation to how some risks had been managed. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not include them in this inspection.

The concerns we received related to management of medication, moving and handling, confidentiality, management and leadership and staff culture. We used this information when both planning and carrying out our inspection. As this was a focused inspection, only reporting on Safe and Well-led, an overall rating for the location will not be produced.

Follow up

We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.