Just a Little Company

People’s experience of using this service: The service continued to meet the characteristics of Good in all areas.

People continued to receive care that was safe. The provider’s arrangements for people’s care helped to protect people from the risk of harm or abuse. Staff were safely recruited and deployed to provide people’s care. Risks to people’s health, associated with their care and related safety needs, were effectively monitored and managed. Staff supported people to take their medicines safely when required. Relevant management checks of staff care practice and competency helped to ensure people’s safety when they received care.

People continued to received care that was effective. People’s care needs were effectively accounted for in consultation with them or their representative. Staff supported people to maintain or improve their health and nutrition when needed. People’s care was provided in the least restrictive way possible and to maximise people’s choice and control in their care. Staff were trained, informed, supported and worked closely with relevant agencies involved for people’s care. This helped to ensure people received consistent and informed care, agreed with them.

People continued to receive care from kind, caring staff. The provider promoted an inclusive culture of shared care values, where staff knew people well and what was important to them for their care. People were treated with respect by staff who ensured their dignity, choice, independence and rights when they provided care. People were informed, involved and supported to understand, agree and make ongoing decisions about their care.

People continued to receive personalised care that was timely, responsive and tailored to their individual needs and wishes. Care was agreed and provided in a way that helped to optimise people’s independence, autonomy and inclusion. People were confident and knew how, to raise a concern or make a complaint if they needed to. People’s views and feedback were regularly sought. Findings from this and any complaints received were used to help inform and ensure any service improvements needed. Work was in progress to ensure operational care policy met with nationally recognised standards concerned with end of life care.

The provider operated effective governance systems to ensure the quality and safety of people’s care and for sustained or timely service improvement when needed. Staff understood their role and responsibilities for people’s care. Operational management arrangements helped to ensure effective care and related communication and record keeping. The service worked in partnership with people, their representatives and relevant external educational, health and social care agencies when needed, to inform and optimise people’s care experience.

More information is in the full report.

Rating at last inspection: Good. Report published 4 August 2017.

Why we inspected: This was a scheduled inspection based on the previous rating.

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

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

The service had two registered manager in place at the time of our inspection. 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.

People were confident that the staff were knowledgeable about the different types of abuse and knew how to report any incidents or concerns to help to keep them safe. Risks to people’s safety had been assessed and staff knew how to support people to reduce any risk of harm. People were able to retain their independence and staff supported them to feel safe in their home and receive their medicines as prescribed. People felt there were enough staff and they had a small team of staff who provided all their care and support. Recruitment procedures meant that any new staff completed checks to ensure they were suitable to work with people.

People liked the staff who provided their support and felt their dignity was promoted and privacy respected. Concerns and complaints were responded to and people were encouraged to raise any issues.

People were involved in the planning and review of their care and support and family members continued to play an important role. Staff gained information about what was important to people so that they could provide care which met their preferences and people felt the staff were skilled and knew how to provide their care.

People could comment on the quality of the service and felt their views were listened to. People and staff were positive about the leadership and management in place and felt they received guidance and support. Systems were in place to assess and monitor the quality of the service. People and staff were encouraged to raise any views about the service, to review how improvements could be made. The manager promoted an open culture which put people at the heart of the service.