Archived: Birmingham Shared Lives Scheme

Updated 19 December 2014

This report was written during the testing phase of our new approach to regulating adult social care services. After this testing phase, inspection of consent to care and treatment, restraint, and practice under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) was moved from the key question ‘Is the service safe?’ to ‘Is the service effective?’.

‘The ratings for this location were awarded in October 2014. They can be directly compared with any other service we have rated since then, including in relation to consent, restraint, and the MCA under the ‘Effective’ section. Our written findings in relation to these topics, however, can be read in the ‘Is the service safe’ sections of this report.

The inspection was undertaken by one inspector.

As part of our inspection process, we asked the provider to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is information we had asked the provider to send us about how they are meeting the requirements of the five key questions. The PIR was not returned within the required timescale. However when the PIR was returned to us it provided detailed information which helped inform our planning and the inspection process.

We spoke with the inspector who carried out the previous inspection and we checked the information we held about the service and the provider. This included notifications received from the provider about accidents and incidents.  A notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law.

We visited the Shared Lives offices and we spoke with three Shared Lives workers. Shared Lives workers were employed by the scheme to assess, monitor and support Shared Lives carers. We also met the person in charge of the service and the chair of the Birmingham Shared Lives panel who approves carer’s applications. Shared Lives carers were not employees of the service but were viewed as self-employed and work from home. They provide ordinary family life that can be either long term, or short term offering regular breaks for unpaid family carers. 

We visited three day centres to meet with five people who lived in shared Lives placements and spoke with five people on the telephone. We carried out eight telephone interviews with Shared Lives carers and we spoke with three day centre staff members.

Updated 19 December 2014

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, and to pilot a new inspection process being introduced by CQC which looks at the overall quality of the service. 

This inspection was announced. This meant that we gave the service short notice so that management and staff were available to assist with our inspection.

Shared Lives Birmingham was last inspected in November 2013. At that time the provider met all the regulations we checked.

The Shared Lives scheme Birmingham recruits, trains and supports paid carers who provide placements for people within their own family homes in the community. The service caters for people aged over 18 who have a disability and for older adults with care needs. When we inspected the scheme was supporting 58 people who lived in family homes and there were 68 approved Shared Lives carers.

The service had a registered manager. The registered manager was absent at the time of the inspection and the provider had appointed a person to be in charge on a temporary basis. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service and has the legal responsibility for meeting the requirements of the law; as does the provider. The provider did not notify us of this change, which they are required to do.

The provider had not considered the impact of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) Supreme court ruling, which extended the safeguarding of independent scrutiny, where people may be deprived of their liberty. In community settings providers must make application to the court of protection.        

All the people we spoke with told us that they liked where they were living and that they were well cared for. People told us that they were supported to be independent and to take part in their chosen hobbies and interests that they enjoyed.

Shared Lives carers told us that they had received the support and training they needed to carry out their role. Robust procedures and systems were in place to ensure that people who used the scheme were supported by carers who were suitable for their role.

Shared Lives workers told us that they had received the support they needed to carry out their role. They needed training in some areas to ensure their skills and knowledge were maintained. We found that systems were in place for workers to follow so that robust assessment and monitoring of carers and the shared lives placement took place.

All the people we spoke with told us that their views were asked for and they had someone they could talk to if needed. All the staff that we spoke with in the different roles throughout the scheme understood their responsibility to speak out about poor practice if they needed to.

That was a staffing structure in place that ensured that there was enough shared Lives workers to support the role of the shared lives carers. Regular meetings took place with carers and workers so that there was an opportunity to learn and share good practice.

We found that the well-established systems in place to monitor the quality of the service had been maintained. Some improvements were needed to make sure that changes in the law in respect of DoLS were incorporated into practice. The provider also needed to comply with the law in respect of notifying us about specific information, we had not been told that the registered manager was absent from the service. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.