South Tyneside Shared Lives Scheme

Updated 16 December 2023

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

1 inspector and 1 Expert by Experience carried out the inspection. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type

This service is a shared lives scheme. They recruit, train and support self-employed shared lives carers who offer accommodation and support arrangements for vulnerable adults within their own family homes in the community.

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 the service had a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because the service is small and people are often out and we wanted to be sure there would be people at home to speak with us.

We visited the service on 20 November 2023.

What we did before inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service. We sought feedback from external health and social care professionals who work with the service, and the local authority. We reviewed the Provider Information Return (PIR). A PIR is information providers send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 4 people who used the service. We observed staff interacting with people. We spoke with the registered manager, regional manager, nominated individual, 2 link workers, 6 Shared Lives carers and 4 relatives. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider. We asked for feedback via email from 6 health and social care professionals.

We reviewed a range of records, including people’s enablement and support records and medication auditing records. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including training data, safeguarding information, staff information, analysis, policies and procedures were reviewed.

Updated 16 December 2023

About the service

South Tyneside Shared Lives is a ‘Shared Lives’ service providing personal care to people, some of whom have a learning disability and/or autism living in their own homes. The service was supporting 70 people with personal care at the time of our inspection. South Tyneside Shared Lives recruits, trains and supports Shared Lives carers. We refer to Shared Lives carers as 'carers' throughout this report. A carer is an individual who provides personal care together with accommodation in their own home. This enables people to live as independently as possible. The scheme supports adults who have a learning disability and/or autism.

South Tyneside Shared Lives provides long term accommodation and support, short respite breaks and emergency accommodation, and short notice care usually in the event of an illness or crisis.

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 felt well supported to live the lives they wanted. They made decisions with the right level of staff encouragement and autonomy. Positive risk taking was encouraged and supported in a structured, risk assessed way.

¿ Carers knew people very well, as did the link officers who supported carers; this led to people feeling supported by a wider team.

¿ Care and support planning was well-informed and included people. Staff worked well with health and social care professionals to make sure people’s needs were met.

¿ People experienced good health and wellbeing outcomes, for instance getting fitter or losing weight. Staff regularly explored people’s goals and helped them achieve them, celebrating with them when they did so.

Right Care

¿ The provider ensured people were well matched to their carers, through a process which involved understanding all aspects of people and carers’ lives. People (and sometimes their carers) transitioned smoothly from fostering services to the adult support in place from Shared Lives.

¿ Staff were proactive in helping people develop their independence. They treated people like members of their family and involved them in all aspects of their lives, whilst respecting their space.

¿ Enablement plans were person-centred and were reviewed regularly.

¿ Staff worked well with external health and social care professionals and people experienced good outcomes as a result.

Right culture

¿ The registered manager and regional manager had recognised the need to streamline and make more effective auditing processes, which were at time unwieldy and not effective, particularly recording the recording of medicines. The provider had put in place a range of measures to improve this at the time of inspection.

¿ Staff were supportive of the new registered manager and some of the cultural changes they and the regional manager were bringing about. These included a review of how to increase awareness of Shared Lives, and which other people they may be able to support in the future.

¿ People, their relatives, and their shared lives carers, played a part in the running of the service. Staff and people were not isolated – there were a number of social events and meetings to ensure carers and people had opportunities to make new friendships and networks.

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

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.