Rathbone Outreach

Updated 11 January 2024

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection team consisted of 2 inspectors.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency and supported living service. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats and to people living in ‘supported living’ settings, so that they can live as independently as possible. In supported living settings people’s care and housing are normally provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

The inspection was announced. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure the registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We visited the office location and 2 supported living services. We reviewed the care records and medicine records of 4 people who used the service. We also spoke with the registered manager, 2 team managers and 2 support workers. We looked at 6 staff files in relation to recruitment, training, and support. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including audits, policies and procedures were reviewed.

After the inspection we received feedback from 3 relatives of people receiving care. We also sent feedback surveys to gather feedback from staff and we received 8 responses.

Updated 11 January 2024

About the service

The Rathbone Centre (Outreach Service) is a domiciliary care and supported living service providing personal care to people in their own homes and in supported living settings. At the time of the inspection there were 7 people receiving personal care support.

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: Risks to people's health and wellbeing were managed well and people were included in the risk management processes. The provider supported people to take their medicines safely. There were infection control processes in place. Staffing levels were sufficient to maintain people's safety and ensure their health and social needs were met.

Right Care: People were treated with kindness and compassion and they received person-centred care from well trained staff that knew them well. People were supported to identify and attend activities in line with their personal preferences and interests. People’s independence was promoted.

Right Culture: The ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and care staff ensure people lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives. The provider worked in partnership with other health and social care professionals to review people's care and support. There were processes in place to gather feedback from people, their relatives and professionals. We received positive comments from relatives of people receiving care about how the registered manager led the team to provide person-centred care.

Despite many positive examples of person-centred care, we could not be assured people were always supported to have maximum choice and control in all aspects of their lives as people’s housing and support were not completely separate. We raised our concerns with the provider and they have taken the necessary action to resolve the issues we found.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was Good (report published 1 November 2018).

Why we inspected

We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, responsive and well-led only. For those key question not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for The Rathbone Centre (Outreach Service) 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.