About the service: North Somerset Council's Adult Placement Scheme is a service that recruits, trains and supports self-employed Shared Lives Carers (SLCs) who provide long term placements, short breaks or day care support for vulnerable adults within their own family homes in the community. The service supports people with learning disabilities and/or autism.Shared Lives schemes offer an alternative to both residential and more traditional care at home services for people who need personal care and support with their day to day lives. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulates the provision of personal care for people who use the service.
Not everyone using this shared life service receives a regulated activity. CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with 'personal care'. This includes help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. In these circumstances we also take into account any wider social care provided. At this inspection, there were 56 shared lives schemes in operation supporting a total of 89 people of which 35 people were receiving support with personal care.
People's experience of using this service:
People received care that was safe, effective, caring and very responsive. People were matched with a shared lives carer that had similar interests. People were very much part of their shared lives family, with good links with their local community and extended families.
People were very much involved in decisions about their care and support and treated as equals. People were at the centre of the planning of their care including choosing who they wanted to live with. People were encouraged to be independent and live the life they wanted. People spoke extremely positively about their individual living arrangements and the skills they had developed.
There were many examples of how responsive the service was from supporting families in the event of an emergency, to people learning and developing new skills. Some people had moved to more independent living in their own flat. It was evident people and their shared lives carers had developed positive and caring relationships,
The service was well led, had clear leadership with supportive networks for the staff, the people and the shared lives carers. Systems were in place to check the quality of the services, which included seeking the views of people, relatives, the shared lives carers and health and social care professionals. Staff were passionate about getting the services right for people.
Rating at last inspection: Good (report published February 2017).
Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the rating at the last inspection. We found the service continued to meet the characteristics of Good.
The Secretary of State has asked the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to conduct a thematic review and to make recommendations about the use of restrictive interventions in settings that provide care for people with or who might have mental health problems, learning disabilities and/or autism. Thematic reviews look in-depth at specific issues concerning quality of care across the health and social care sectors. They expand our understanding of both good and poor practice and of the potential drivers of improvement.
As part of the thematic review, we carried out a survey with the registered manager at this inspection. This considered whether the service used any restrictive intervention practices (restraint, seclusion and segregation) when supporting people.
The service used positive behaviour support principles to support people in the least restrictive way. No restrictive intervention practices were used.
Follow up: We will continue to review information we receive about the service until we return to visit as part of our re-inspection programme. If any concerning information is received, we may inspect sooner.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the website at www.cqc.org.uk