8 January 2017
During a routine inspection
The service provides accommodation and personal care for short break respite care for six people who have a learning disability. The service accommodates a maximum of two people at any given time. On the day of our inspection there was one person using 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 provider had quality monitoring systems in place which were used to bring about improvements to the service. These had been fully effective in identifying the issues in relation to best interest decisions.
The staff had a clear knowledge of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). These safeguards aim to protect people living in care homes from being inappropriately deprived of their liberty. These safeguards can only be used when a person lacks the mental capacity to make certain decisions and there is no other way of supporting the person safely. We have made a recommendation around how the service records people’s best interest decisions and their mental capacity assessments for people.
There were processes in place for the safe storage and management of medicines.
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.
People were provided with regular opportunities to express their needs, wishes and preferences regarding how they lived their daily lives.
Each person was supported to access and attend a range of 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 and support was personalised to reflect people’s preferences and personalities.
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 people 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.
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.
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 person.