About the service Grange (Whitefield) Care Services Ltd is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people living in their own home within supported living projects. At the time of the inspection the service was supporting 40 people who needed support with their learning and physical disabilities, autism and mental health.
Not everyone who used the service received 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
People who were able to communicate with us, expressed content and happiness with the care and support they received. We also observed people who were non-communicative engaging with support staff positively and confidently.
Relatives of people using the service spoke positively of the service and the care and support that their family member received.
We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, 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 assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.
The service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting some of the underpinning principles of Right support, right care, right culture. The model of care and setting maximises people’s choice, control and independence. Care is person-centred and promotes people’s dignity, privacy and human rights. The ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and care staff ensure people using services lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives.
During the inspection we saw people interacting with support staff in ways which assured us that people felt safe and were happy. Staff knew the signs to look for if abuse was suspected and told us of the actions they would take to protect people from abuse.
Care plans detailed people’s identified risks associated with their health and care needs, with clear guidance to staff on how to manage those risks to keep people safe.
Safe medicines management and administration processes in place ensured people received their medicines as prescribed and on time.
We observed sufficient numbers of staff available to assist people with their assessed needs. Recruitment processes ensured that only those staff assessed as safe to work with vulnerable adults were employed.
People were supported by support staff who had been appropriately trained and were skilled in their role. Support staff told us they were regularly supported through supervision and annual appraisals.
People were supported to eat and drink to maintain a balanced and healthy diet. The service supported people to lead healthy lives and supported them to access relevant health care services where required.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
People approached managers and support staff with their questions and concerns whenever they wanted and we observed staff attending to them immediately. Relatives knew who to speak with if they had any complaints and were confident their concerns would be dealt with appropriately and in a timely manner.
Management oversight processes in place enabled the service to monitor the quality of care people received. Where issues were identified these were addressed immediately with further learning and development implemented to improve people’s experiences.
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 (published 08 February 2019).
Why we inspected
This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.
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.