5 August 2020
During an inspection looking at part of the service
West Midlands Community Services is registered to provide personal care to younger people who may live with learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder, physical disability, sensory or mental health needs, in their own homes. At the time of the inspection, the service provided care to four people living at a specialist housing location.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People’s safety needs had been assessed and staff knew what action to take if they had any concerns for people’s well-being. There were enough staff to care for people and staff were positive about recent changes which had been introduced to support them to provide good care to people. These changes had promoted people’s safety and well-being.
There had been a recent change in management and provider representatives supporting the service. People’s relatives and other health and social care professionals told us communication with the new manager and staff team was improving. Staff told us they now felt supported to provide good care through training, increased staffing and discussions with the manager.
People were supported in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. However, we found the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) was not consistently applied, because where people needed support to make some decisions these had not been recorded by staff.
The service didn’t always apply the principles and values of Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. These ensure that people who use the service can live as full a life as possible and achieve the best possible outcomes that include control, choice and independence.
The outcomes for people did not fully reflect the principles and values of Registering the Right Support as decisions had not consistently been taken to promote people's choice and control. There was a risk people would not always receive support based on their choices and preferences, as staff had not consistently been provided with guidance they needed to do this. The manager confirmed they had started to arrange reviews with people’s relatives and other health and social care professionals to address this.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
This service was registered with us on 16/03/2020 and this is the first inspection.
Why we inspected
We undertook this targeted inspection to check on specific concerns we had about people’s safety and how the service was registered.
CQC have introduced targeted inspections to follow up on Warning Notices or to check specific concerns. They do not look at an entire key question, only the part of the key question we are specifically concerned about. Targeted inspections do not provide or change the rating from the previous inspection, if a rating was provided. This is because they do not assess all areas of a key question.
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.