3 October 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
About the service
Northamptonshire Supported Living Service is a domiciliary care agency. They provide personal care to people living in their own individual flats within a supported living setting. 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. At the time of the inspection four people were receiving personal care.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Right support
People were supported by staff who knew them well and focused on people’s strengths and promoted what they could do. Staff supported people to access a range of healthcare services.
Restrictive practice had improved. The service worked with people to plan for when they experienced periods of distress so that their freedoms were restricted only if there was no alternative. Staff followed best practice and records were clear in identifying the need for any restrictions.
Staff supported people with their medicines in a way that promoted their independence and achieved the best possible health outcome. Staff received training on medicines and any health conditions a person may have.
People were supported with their communication. Staff were trained to understand different communication methods and provided personalised support to people. Information was made accessible in different formats, such as, easy read and pictorial.
Staff supported people to make decisions following best practice in decision-making. The service made reasonable adjustments for people so they could be fully in discussions about how they received support.
Right care
The service had enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe. Staff completed nationally recognised training and received regular support from managers to ensure their skills and knowledge was kept up to date.
Staff promoted equality and diversity in their support for people. They understood people’s cultural needs and provided culturally appropriate care. Care plans reflected people needs, wishes and choices.
Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. The service worked well with other agencies to do so. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it.
People could communicate with staff and understand information given to them because staff supported them consistently and understood their individual communication needs.
Right culture
Oversight of service to assess, monitor and improve the service had improved. However, some systems and processes required embedding into practice. The manager had implemented new systems which were still in their infancy.
People were supported by staff who understood best practice in relation to the wide range of strengths, and needs people with a learning disability and/or autistic people may have. This meant people received compassionate and empowering care that was tailored to their needs.
People and those important to them, including advocates, were involved in planning their care. The service enabled people and those important to them to work with staff to develop the service.
Staff ensured risks of a closed culture were minimised so that people received support based on transparency, respect and inclusivity. The manager was supportive to staff and worked directly with people and led by example.
The service ensured people's behaviour was not controlled by excessive and inappropriate use of medicines. Staff understood and implemented the principles of STOMP (stopping over-medication of people with a learning disability, autism or both).
The provider, manager and staff were dedicated to achieving best outcomes for people. The provider had a clear vision for the service and promoted improvement and feedback.
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 this service was requires improvement (published 16 March 2022) and there were multiple breaches of regulation. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.
Why we inspected
This inspection was carried out to follow up on action we told the provider to take at the last inspection. We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements.
This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe, Effective and Well-led which contain those requirements.
For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.