able2achieve Office

Updated 27 June 2023

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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by 1 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.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care and support to people living in their own homes and 'supported living' accommodation so they can live as independently as possible. People's care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people's personal care and support.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of the Inspection

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 22nd May 2023 and ended on 24th May 2023. We visited the location’s office on 22nd May 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 6 members of staff which included the registered manager and the nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider. We spoke with 3 people who use the service and 5 relatives. We reviewed a range of records. This included 4 care records and several medicine records. We looked at 2 staff files. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures and audits were reviewed.

Updated 27 June 2023

About the service

Able2achieve is a domiciliary care agency and supported living service. It provides personal care to people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people living in their own homes in the community. It also provides care and support to people living in 'supported living' accommodation, so that they can live in their own home as independently as possible. At the time of the inspection, the service was supporting 15 people with their personal care needs in Somerset.

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

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 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.

Right Support:

The service supported people to have choice, control and independence. The service had plans and guidance to support people with identified risks. Staff communicated with people in ways that met their needs. Care was person centred and promoted choice and independence. People were supported to achieve positive outcomes. People were supported by staff who received an induction and ongoing training. People were happy with the support they received.

Right Care:

People felt safe. Risks to people were assessed and mitigated. Systems, processes and practices safeguarded people from abuse and avoidable harm. People were protected by the prevention and control of infection measures in place. Lessons were learned and improvements were made when things went wrong. Staff were recruited in a safe way. People were treated with kindness and respect. People's privacy and dignity was respected. Staff were kind and caring.

Right Culture:

The registered manager listened to concerns and promoted a positive culture that was person-centred, open and inclusive. Concerns and complaints were listened and responded to. Staff support, teamwork and staff morale was generally good. Staff were positive about their work and clear about the aims of the service. There were effective quality monitoring systems in place.

Feedback from people and their relatives was good.

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 6 August 2019) and there were breaches of Regulation 19 (Fit and proper persons employed) and Regulation 18 Registrations (Notification of other incidents). 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 prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for able2achieve on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.