Pathways Support

Updated 24 August 2022

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 completed by one inspector.

Service and service type

This service provides care and support to people living in three ‘supported living’ settings, so that 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 service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

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

Notice of inspection

We gave a short period of notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the provider/registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection and to enable the people using the service to understand and consent to the inspector visiting their supported living houses.

Inspection activity started on 25 July 2022 and ended on 28 July 2022. We visited the location’s office on 25 July 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since it was last inspected. 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 three people who received care and support and three family members of people who received care and support. We received feedback from one healthcare professional. We spoke with the provider/registered manager, project manager and five staff members. We reviewed a range of records including risk assessments and care plans, medicines records and a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including quality assurance records, recruitment records, training information and policies and procedures.

Updated 24 August 2022

About the service

Pathways support is a supported living service providing the regulated activity personal care. The

service provides support to adults with a mental health need, learning disability or autism. 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. At the time of our inspection there were seven people receiving a personal care service.

Care was provided in shared houses for up to four people. Each person had their own bedroom and shared communal facilities such as lounges, kitchen/dining rooms and gardens.

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

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.

This focused inspection covered safe and well-led. Based on the information reviewed and feedback from staff, relatives, people and external professionals the service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting the underpinning principles of right support, right care, right culture.

The model of care and setting maximised people's choice, control and Independence. Care was person-centred and promoted people's dignity, privacy and human rights. The ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and care staff ensured people using services lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives.

Right Support

People were supported by staff who knew how to prevent and manage risks and keep them safe from avoidable harm whilst enabling them to fully enjoy life. The service's arrangements for controlling infection were effective. People received their medicines safely, there were sufficient staff to meet people’s needs and safe recruitment and induction procedures were followed.

Right care

An integrated risk assessment and care planning system helped ensure people received personal care and support tailored to meet their individual needs and wishes. People were encouraged to make decisions about the care and support they received and had their choices respected.

Right culture

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, family members and an external professional were positive about all aspects of the service. The management team understood their responsibilities and had safe systems in place to ensure these were met.

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 28 February 2019) and there were breaches of regulation. 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 due to the time since the previous inspection. We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this service on 22 January 2019. Breaches of legal requirements were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve medicines management, submission of statutory notifications and governance of the service. Statutory notifications are information the provider is legally required to send to CQC.

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions safe and well-led which contain those requirements.

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 Pathways support 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.