Archived: Newfield View Supported Living Limited

Newfield View Supported Living is a supported living service based in the town of Eckington in Sheffield. People lived in their own homes and had tenancy agreements with a housing association.

The provider supported adults with a range of needs, including learning disability and autistic spectrum disorder, physical disability, sensory impairment, drug and alcohol misuse and mental health. During the inspection, 18 people were being supported with their personal care needs in 13 properties. There were between 2 and 4 people living in most houses and one person lived alone.

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.

The service has been developed and designed in line with the principles and values that underpin Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. This ensures that people who use the service can live as full a life as possible and achieve the best possible outcomes. The principles reflect the need for people with learning disabilities and/or autism to live meaningful lives that include control, choice, and independence. People using the service receive planned and co-ordinated person-centred support that is appropriate and inclusive for them.

The Secretary of State has asked the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to conduct a thematic review and to make recommendations about the use of restrictive interventions in settings that provide care for people with or who might have mental health problems, learning disabilities and/or autism. Thematic reviews look in-depth at specific issues concerning quality of care across the health and social care sectors. They expand our understanding of both good and poor practice and of the potential drivers of improvement.

As part of thematic review, we carried out a survey with the registered manager at this inspection. This considered whether the service used any restrictive intervention practices (restraint, seclusion and segregation) when supporting people. The service used positive behaviour support principles to support people in the least restrictive way. No restrictive intervention practices were used.

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

Governance and performance management was not always clear or effective. The management team had identified that this was an area for improvement and were rolling out a new audit tool.

Complaints were not handled and responded to consistently. Some relatives told us their relation was living in a home with people they didn’t feel comfortable with and with whom they had no shared interests. People were supported and where appropriate, encouraged to develop and maintain relationships that were important to them.

Some people’s relatives expressed concern about the lack of promotion of independence. People told us they were supported by staff who were kind and caring. We observed interactions between staff and people and saw people were treated with kindness, respect and their dignity was upheld.

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. People’s physical, mental and social needs were holistically assessed.

People were consistently safe and protected from avoidable harm. There were systems and processes in place to keep people safe and raise and investigate potential safeguarding concerns. Though we found the documentation around this was not always clear.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was Good (published November 2016)

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.

At the time of this inspection Newfield View Supported Living was supporting 21 people within the provision of the regulated activity ‘personal care’.

There was a manager at the service who was registered with CQC. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The registered manager was also the registered provider for this service.

This inspection took place on 10 October 2016 and short notice was given. We told the registered manager two days before our visit that we would be coming. We did this because the registered manager is sometimes out of the office and we needed to be sure that the registered manager would be available. We also wanted to make sure we would be able to meet with some people supported by the service and some staff.

People who used the service told us they were “Happy” or “Very Happy” with the support provided. They told us they liked their support workers and the registered manager.

There were systems in place to ensure risks to people’s safety and wellbeing were identified

and addressed. The registered provider and staff team were well aware of their responsibility to protect people’s health and wellbeing.

A full and thorough recruitment process was followed which helped to ensure staff employed at the service were of good character and able to carry out their role to the required standard.

There were sufficient numbers of support workers available to keep people safe. Staffing levels were determined by the number of people who used the service and their individual needs.

Systems were in place to support people with their medicines safely.

People who used the service told us support workers were “Good” and gave them the support they needed. Comments included, “They [support workers] are great. They know all about me” and “They [support workers] are my friends.”

We found staff were provided with relevant training, supervision and appraisal for development and support.

Staff told us they were very well supported by the registered manager who was always available to talk to if they needed advice or information. Staff told us communication was good and they worked well together. All of the staff spoken with showed a sense of pride at working at this service.

The service followed the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) Code of practice and the principles of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). This helped to protect the rights of people who may not be able to make important decisions themselves.

People’s care and support was provided in a person centred way. Information about how people preferred their support to be delivered was kept under review and up to date.

People who used the service felt able to express their opinions and views. People told us their views were listened to and where necessary action was taken to improve their experience of the service.

We found the service had a robust process in place to enable them to respond to people and their concerns, investigate them and had taken action to address their concerns.

There were effective systems in place to monitor and improve the quality of the service provided. Regular checks and audits were undertaken to make sure full and safe procedures were adhered to.

We found that before people received any care and support they were asked for their opinion and agreement to ensure that staff acted in accordance with their wishes.

We found that people's care and support needs were assessed and each person had a written support plan that set out their identified needs and the actions required of staff to meet these.

We found that medicines were being handled and stored safely.

The provider had a satisfactory recruitment and selection procedure in place to ensure that staff were appropriately employed.

The provider had an effective complaints system available.