1 June 2023
During an inspection looking at part of the service
About the service
West Cornwall Support Services is a supported living service which supports people with learning disabilities and autistic people. The service supports people living in 15 different settings in Cornwall. Some settings were houses in multiple occupation where people had their own bedrooms with shared cooking, lounge and bathroom facilities. The other settings consisted of flats and houses where each person’s accommodation was self-contained.
At the time of our inspection 44 people were being supported by the service, 21 of whom received support with 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
Right Support:
People were protected from abuse and staff understood how to report safeguarding concerns to the local authority. Risks had been identified and appropriately mitigated. Staff knew how to keep people safe while promoting independence.
Medicines were managed safely, and staff understood current infection control guidance.
The service supported people to become more independent and gain new skills. People had taken on responsibilities within their homes and were supported to access work placements.
The service appropriately supported people to raise concerns about their environment with housing providers.
Staff empowered people and respected their decisions. Staff were able to communicate effectively with people who were able to change their minds in relation to planned events.
Right Care:
People’s capacity to make decisions had been appropriately assessed. Where individuals lacked capacity and there were restrictions to their freedoms, these issues had been reported to the local authority for authorisation by the Court of Protection.
People’s care plans were accurate and informative. They provided staff with enough guidance to enable them to meet people’s individual needs. There were systems in place to ensure people’s needs and preferences were fully understood to enable successful transitions.
People got on well with their support staff and were confident requesting help when needed. Staff encouraged and supported people to become more independent and enabled people to engage with a variety of activities and interests. People were supported to maintain relationships important to them and to meet with friends and relatives regularly.
Right Culture:
Relatives were complimentary of the care and support people received and people were happy spending time with their staff.
Staff had been safely recruited and staffing levels were sufficient to meet people’s needs. Specific staffing challenges in 2 of the 15 setting meant agency staff were being regularly used. There was a recruitment programme underway and additional support had been given to the team in one setting to help address and resolve issues between members of the staff.
Quality assurance systems were effective. Staff told us they were well supported and able to access guidance and advice when needed.
The registered manager was appropriately supported by a team of managers whose individual roles and responsibilities were well understood by staff and relatives.
The service learned when things went wrong. Changes had been made to systems and procedures following incidents to prevent similar events reoccurring.
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 the service was Good (published 9 January 2019). At this inspection the rating remained good.
Why we inspected
This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.
We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all care home inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.