About the service Platform (Hull) is a domiciliary care service providing personal care and support to people with learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder, physical disability and younger adults in their own homes. The service currently supports one person with personal care in their own home.
People’s experience of using this 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 Care Quality Commission (CQC) follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.
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; however, the policies and systems in the service did not always support this practice. We have made a recommendation about this.
The service did not have an end of life policy in place should they be required to support someone in the end stages of life. We have made a recommendation about this. The service was not supporting anyone at the end of their life during inspection.
Right Support:
Staff focused on people’s strengths and promoted what they could do, so people had a fulfilling and meaningful everyday life. Staff supported people to make decisions following best practice in decision-making. Staff communicated with people in ways that met their needs. Staff supported people to take part in activities and pursue their interests in their local area. Staff wore personal protective equipment (PPE) appropriately which helped to protect people from the risk of infection.
Right Care:
Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. There were enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe. People could communicate with staff and understand information given to them because staff supported them consistently and understood their individual communication needs. We observed positive interactions between people and staff. People’s care and treatment support plans reflected their range of needs and this promoted their wellbeing and enjoyment of life. Relatives told us they were involved in care planning and could attend meetings. Staff assessed people’s risks appropriately and encouraged and enabled people to take positive risks.
Right Culture:
Staff knew and understood people well and were responsive, supporting their aspirations to live a quality of life of their choosing. Staff told us they enjoyed their job and making a positive difference to someone’s life. Staff turnover was low, which supported people to receive consistent care from staff who knew them well. People and those important to them were involved in planning their care and staff evaluated the quality of care supported to people, involving the person, their families and other professionals as appropriate.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
This service was registered with us on 21 October 2020 and this is the first inspection.
Why we inspected
This was a planned inspection to rate the service.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.