Voyage (DCA) West Midlands

About the service

Voyage (DCA) West Midlands is a domiciliary care and supported living service providing personal care. The provider supports people who live in their own homes and in 6 supported living settings. Each setting has its own staff team to support people. At the time of the inspection there were 40 people using the service including people with physical disabilities and learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder.

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

Right Support: Risks to people’s safety were understood and staff knew how to keep people safe. People received their medicines as prescribed. 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 were supported to minimise the risk of cross infection.

Right Care: Staff could recognise abuse and poor care and were clear on how to report any incidents or concerns to keep people safe. Staff were matched to people they supported, and hours were agreed with commissioners of peoples care to ensure they had sufficient staff to support people. People received care which was person centred and had plans in place to guide staff in how to support people.

Right Culture: There was a learning process in place to understand when things went wrong and prevent incidents from happening again. The provider ensured there was an open and transparent culture in the home and had systems in place to monitor the quality of the service people received. Feedback was sought from people, relatives and staff about the service.

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 the service at the previous premises was good, (published on 10 November 2017.)

Why we inspected

We undertook this inspection as part of a random selection of services rated Good and Outstanding.

We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

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 remained good based on the findings of this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘All inspection reports and timeline’ link for Voyage (DCA) West Midlands 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.

The inspection visits took place on 18 and 19 September 2017. The first day was an announced visit, the second day of the inspection was arranged to enable us to speak to people receiving a service in their own homes. We were assisted in obtaining consent for the home visits by the registered manager. 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Voyage (DCA) West Midlands is part of the Voyage Care Group which is a specialist provider of care and support for people with complex needs. People using this service lived with a range of conditions including learning disabilities, downs syndrome, and cerebral palsy. The service provides a domiciliary care service to people living in their own homes and people living in supported living schemes. At our inspection 18 people were using the service.

People were protected because risk assessments had been completed and there were appropriate actions taken to reduce the risk of harm.

People's identified support needs were met by sufficient numbers of support workers who were available to support people at agreed and appropriate times.

People using the service were secure and safe with their support workers. The provider ensured support workers had the required systems in place to protect people and keep them safe from the risk of abuse.

The provider had efficient and effective procedures for the recruitment of support workers and ensured they received the necessary induction and training to meet the support needs of people using the service.

People were supported or assisted by support workers to receive the medicines prescribed by their healthcare professionals.

People's consent was obtained before providing support. The provider understood the legal requirements of the Mental Capacity Act (2005) and the need to consider Court of Protection applications where appropriate.

People were supported to be as independent as possible and were able to make choices, and were encouraged to take responsibility for their own daily activities. People also chose and prepared their own food and drink at times to suit them.

People's health and support needs were regularly assessed and where necessary people were supported to access local health care professionals to ensure their health care needs were met.

People were observed to be supported by caring and respectful staff who maintained people’s privacy and dignity.

People’s support needs were clearly recorded in person centred support plans which involved people in their own care and were regularly reviewed.

People knew how to complain about the service they received and were supported to raise concerns or make complaints.

People had regular access to the registered manager and other managers for the provider.

The provider had effective management systems in place to regularly assess and monitor the quality of the service and took action to improve and ensure consistency across all of their services registered with CQC.