The Focus Foundation

The Focus Foundation is a domiciliary care agency and supported living service providing personal care to people. The service is run by a Jewish organisation to support members of the Jewish community. The service provides support to older people or younger adults who may live with a physical disability, learning disability or autism. At the time of this inspection the service supported 38 people, however 6 received support with their personal care.

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.

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.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

Right Support: People were at the heart of the service and were respected and valued as individuals. People received exceptional care because staff and the management team were passionate about providing people with high-quality person-centred care. People were supported by staff with the skills and experience to provide excellent quality care and support, which included training to enable them to provide tailored support to meet individual needs and support them in their lifestyle choices.

There were several special examples of staff going the extra mile to ensure people received a tailor-made service. Staff continuously looked for ways to enhance the quality of people's lives. 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; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. Staff demonstrated they understood people's diverse needs and respected their equality such as age, disability and gender.

Right Care: Staff were all respectful and understood people's cultural needs. Staff provided culturally appropriate care and support respecting family traditions, ways of living and communicating. People received excellent care and support from a dedicated staff team who knew people's needs exceptionally well. Staff were passionate about achieving the best outcomes for people to support them to live the life they wished. They understood and responded to people’s individual needs. Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. The service worked well with other agencies to do so.

Right Culture: Staff turnover was very low, which supported people to receive consistent care from staff who knew them well. Staff placed people’s wishes, needs, and rights at the heart of everything they did. People and those important to them were involved in planning their care. Staff evaluated the quality of support provided to people, involving the person and other professionals as appropriate. People’s quality of life was enhanced by the service’s culture of improvement and inclusivity. Staff ensured risks of a closed culture were minimised so that people received support based on transparency, respect and inclusivity.

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 22 July 2021 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

Follow up

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