Gloucestershire Shared Lives

Updated 27 March 2019

The inspection:

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team:

This inspection was carried out by a lead inspector, assistant inspector and an expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. Their expertise was in learning disabilities.

Service and service type:

This is a shared lives service. Share Lives services recruit and support approved Shared Lives Carers (SLC) who provide people with support in their own home. The support they provide may be permanent or temporary. This service is registered with CQC to provide personal care to people. CQC does not regulate shared lives carers homes.

The service had a manager who was registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection:

Inspection site visit activity started on 25 February 2019 and ended on 1 March 2019. On 25 February 2019 we attended a Gloucestershire Shared Lives support meeting and spoke to people and their Shared Lives Carers. On 27 February 2019, we visited the office location to see the registered manager and Shared Lives Officers and to review care records and policies and procedures. On 1 March 2019, we contacted and received feedback from seven Shared Lives Carers, two people using the service and one relative by telephone.

What we did:

Before the inspection, we reviewed the Provider Information Return (PIR) submitted by the provider. Providers are required to send us key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We also reviewed other information we held about the service including previous inspection reports and information about important events that the service is legally required to submit to CQC.

During the inspection we looked at four people’s care plan’s and associated records relating to their care and their Shared Lives Carers. We also looked at records relating to staff development and recruitment, as well as records of accidents, incidents and complaints and the audits and quality assurance reports of the service.

Updated 27 March 2019

About the service:

Gloucestershire Shared Lives provides care and support to people within a family environment. Approved Shared Lives Carers (SLC) support adults with learning and/or a physical disability; older people and people with mental health problems. People lived with their SLC on a short or long-term basis depending on their needs. There was 25 people using the service at the time of the inspection.

People’s experience of using this service:

• People told us they were happy living with their SLC and being part of a family. One person said, “I like everything and I like the dog as well.” People explained that they felt safe living with their SLC and families and confirmed that the support they received from their SLC was kind and very caring.

• People’s independence was promoted and they were given opportunities to personally develop appropriate to their needs and wishes.

• People’s relatives and health care professionals, we spoke to praised the compassionate and caring culture of the service and felt the service focused on people’s individual support needs.

• People had been involved in the assessment of their care and decisions about their support needs and where they should live. Their views and assessment was fundamental to ensure that the SLC had the skills and family life that would suit the needs of individual people.

• People’s care plans provided SLC with the information they needed to support people and the management of people’s individual risks. SLC had been trained in managing people’s medicines. Further work was being carried out to improve the service’s practices in the management and administration of over the counter medicines and the management of 'as required' (PRN) medicines.

• SLC had the support they needed to care for people. They were provided with regular breaks and had ongoing and regular support from Shared Lives Officers (SLO) and other SLC.

SLC had received regular training and had the skills to support the people they cared for. They were aware of shared lives policies and care practices and their responsibilities to protect people from harm and abuse.

• SLC, SLO and other stakeholders commented that they felt the management of service had improved. The registered manager had implemented effective systems to monitor the quality of the service, reflect on practices and drive improvement.

Rating at last inspection: Good (Last report was published on 26 August 2016).

Why we inspected: We inspected this service as part of our ongoing Adult Social Care inspection programme. This was a planned inspection based on the previous Good rating.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our inspection programme. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk