The Limes

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

The service is exceptionally well-led. The registered manager and provider are fully committed to ensuring people have the best quality care they can, and that people are at the centre of every decision made in relation to their support. They had fostered a hugely positive culture and had ensured the staff team fully embraced every aspect of their job roles, putting people firmly at the centre of their support. The registered manager and provider were hugely skilled in their job roles and had outstanding systems in place both to monitor the quality of the service and take decisive actions to continually improve the service if this was necessary. There was a passion from the whole management and staff team to keep up to date with best practice guidance and be the best they could be in their job roles. The provider had been recognised by numerous professionals and partners for the amazing way they supported people.

This service scored 100 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

There was a hugely positive culture at the service. The provider had a clear vision and values for the service which firmly put people’s support first. This vision and values had been fully embraced by the registered manager and staff team resulting in incredibly positive outcomes for people as detailed throughout this report. A relative said, ‘‘[Provider] is fully invested in the service but not for money, but to support people to be the best of their ability. Nothing is too much for them. They make sure [family member] has whatever they need when they need it.’’ Another relative told us, ‘‘It took a lot for me to let [family member] be supported somewhere else. I am so lucky to have found the service and I am so assured by how happy, settled, and relaxed [family member] is thanks to how incredibly well supported they are. Hats off to all the staff. They are amazing.’’ The provider and registered manager’s values were important to them. They spoke passionately with us about how supporting people to the best of their ability with their support needs was key to any and all decisions they made in relation to the service. They prioritised these values in all aspects of service provision. They explained how they only employed staff members who fully lived up to the values of the service. Their recruitment process focused on staff members values and also included potential new staff members visiting the service and spending time with people to make sure people were happy to be supported by them. The registered manager told us, ‘‘We are a supportive and inclusive organisation, and we aim to have the best staff possible. We make sure first and foremost that they are going to be the right fit for people. It is their home, and they need to be comfortable with who is working here.’’ As a result of the providers high standards, staff were extremely skilled and suitable for their job roles meaning people had the best support they could.

The registered manager was very skilled in their job role and understood every aspect of it to the very best of their ability. They knew people exceptionally well as individuals and spent a lot of their time working directly with people and the staff team. This meant they knew people well but also knew how staff worked with and supported people on a daily basis so they could support staff in their job roles. They spoke at length with us about how important supporting people as individuals was to them and how they had prioritised this above all else. A staff member said, ‘‘[Registered manager] is rarely in the office. They are always out and about working with us. It is great as they know people as well as we do so we know we can approach them with anything to do with people’s support.’’ A relative told us, ‘‘[Registered manager] is very open and most times we go into the service they know everything that has happened as well as the staff team. It is a sign of how good a leader they are.’’ The registered manager and provider were compassionate and inclusive. They fully understood the importance of involving people and their relatives in all decisions about the service. They had gone above and beyond in getting to know people as individuals and working out how best to involve them and their relatives in discussions about their support. As a result, people and their relatives felt incredibly well supported. A relative said, ‘‘[Provider and registered manager] are fantastic at their jobs. I love how they spend time with [family member] to truly get to know them and how best to support them. I know they constantly speak with staff about how best to support people. I think their hearts are completely in the right place. I know this service will be [family members] home for life and can think of no better place for them to be.’’ The registered manager told us they felt well supported by the provider.

The registered manager and provider had fostered a culture where people, relatives and staff all felt confident to speak up. People were supported to speak up in ways that made sense to them. For example, staff met with them regularly to talk about how they were enjoying how they were spending their time. Staff also observed how people were feeling throughout the day and used this as a guide to see if people were enjoying what was happening or not. For example, staff identified one person found making choices easier if they were shown the choices to be made and then left alone for an extended period of time. They used the feedback from the person to help them make choices more easily. Relatives told us they had no concerns about the service or how their family member were being supported however felt fully confident that anything they had to say would be taken seriously. They also told us how the management and staff team involved them in regular discussions about the service and their family member’s support. One relative told us, ‘‘[Registered manager and staff team] touch base with us frequently to make sure we are happy with how everything is going. We can also speak up at any point. I cannot foresee when I would ever have a concern to raise but I know it would be taken extremely seriously.’’ The registered manager and provider encouraged feedback on a frequent basis from the staff team. The registered manager told us they knew how important it was staff felt able to speak up as they knew people well working with them on a daily basis. Staff told us they felt incredibly confident to speak up about any improvements they felt could be made to the service. A staff member said, ‘‘Any suggestions we have, no matter how small are listened to and taken on board. If something works well for [people] then we raise this, and it is shared with the rest of the staff team. It means people are always getting the best support they can.’’

The registered manager and provider knew how important the staff team were to the success of the service and the quality of support people had. As explained earlier in this report the provider had a rigorous recruitment process to help ensure they employed staff who lived and breathed the values of the service. They ensured their staff were treated fairly and fully supported to engage with the service. The registered manager told us, ‘‘We pride ourselves on having the most dedicated staff we can have and train them to be the best they can be. They look at people using the service and see them completely as individuals. They discuss everything that happens when they support people, and we factor that into people’s support. Supporting the staff well leads to people being supported well.’’ Without exception, staff told us they were fully supported by the registered manager and provider. Their comments included, ‘‘I love working at the service. It is amazing how they have supported me. If we need anything like training or support with anything to do with work, they go out of the way to put this in place for us.’’ and, ‘‘I think working here is the best thing I have done. I have had so much support not just directly with work but also to learn new skills and understand working [in this country for the first time]. I feel blessed to have a job here.’’ The providers recruitment practice was fair and equitable. They made extreme efforts to support staff members in every way possible. Staff were supported to work flexibly and to have support to learn new skills to aid them in their job role. The provider had been recognised by several external agencies as being a model employer for staff members and this was evident in the feedback from staff about how well supported, they were.

The registered manager and provider completed numerous robust audits to monitor the quality of the service. These were tremendously effective in identifying where things were going well and where small improvements were needed. It spoke to the values of the provider that the majority of the audits were clearly focused on people’s experiences and whether they were receiving the service they wanted in line with their support needs. For example, audits were tailored around what people did on day-to-day basis and whether this was leading to good outcomes for people. This effectively helped people identify what they enjoyed doing and meant staff were able to support them specifically in line with their likes and dislikes. A relative explained, ‘‘[Family member] is being supported to live their best life. They are so much happier now and are doing things they only ever dreamed of doing. Everything they do is carefully considered by the staff team afterwards to make sure it was a positive experience for them. It is so reassuring to know how seriously their enjoyment of life is taken.’’ The provider had suitable sustainability arrangements in place at the service. The provider was heavily involved at the service and visited regularly, completing regular audits to satisfy themselves that people were receiving the best quality support. They prioritised people’s experience and had a full understanding of RSRCRC. For example, they did not fill a vacant room at the service as they wanted to support the people already living there to their best ability. The provider said, ‘‘This is more than just a job for us. We truly want the people living here to have the best lives they can have. That is why we work so closely with [registered manager] to truly understand what people need. Everything we do is for the best of people and that is why we have so much positive feedback from relatives and good outcomes for people.’’

The registered manager and staff team worked well with external partners to support people in the best way possible. They supported people to access communities that were important to them. For example, one person attended a service with their peers which involved them in their interests. We saw how happy this person was when they left for this visit. A relative said, ‘‘It has always been important to [family member] to attend [community] and staff make it their mission to not only take them but also support them to be as involved as they can. This means a lot as it means [family member] has friends outside of the service which is excellent.’’ Another person who had recently moved to the service was being supported to access local communities and build relationships in various places such as shops. A relative said, ‘‘Before living at the service [family member] would just do the same thing day in and day out and it would always be just them and the staff members. I feel so lucky and privileged as now they are truly a part of the community and meet different people all the time. It has really bought them out of their shell. The registered manager worked with partners such as other services to discuss best practice for people and how best to support them in line with this. For example, they evidenced how they had discussed how best to support RSRCRC with other providers. As well as thus, the provider had strong working connections between all of the services under its name. If something went well at one service, this was immediately shared to make sure good practice was embedded. The registered manager explained, ‘‘We have weekly meetings with all the managers of the services and the main aim of the meetings is to share best practice so we can support people as best we can. It is also good for me as I have support from my peers. This has been a key reason why our service has flourished and how happy people are.’’

Whilst the service was delivering outstanding care for people and ensuring they had the best quality support possible; the registered manager and provider were incredibly aware and wanted to continually learn and improve the service. Primarily, they drove improvements by working intensely with the staff team as they supported people on a day-to-day basis. Learning was based on what was working well for people and improvements were made to help ensure people’s outcomes were successfully maintained. People were very happy living at the service as explained throughout this report. Relatives’ comments included, ‘‘Whenever I bring [family member] to see me I have to wait until the last minute to tell them they are going back to the service as they want to go back immediately. They love it and truly see it as their home.’’ and, ‘‘[Service] have gone from strength to strength since [family member] moved in. They were good from the beginning but now I truly think the way they support [family member] is extremely special.’’ The registered manager spoke with us at length about the work they had done to improve the service since they started working there. The work they had done at the service to help it improve had been phenomenal. People’s experiences and the outcomes they had been supported to achieve as explained throughout this report were all as a result of the support given to them by the management and staff team. People’s care plans, particularly those created in easy read were of the very highest quality as the registered manager and support them had added to and improved them as they got to know people as individuals. Service improvement plans were in place to make sure the service continually improved in line with best practice. It was inspiring to see how the service was supporting people to live their best lives and the outcomes people had achieved thanks to the management and staff teams’ dedication to continuous improvement and innovation.