South Tyneside Shared Lives Scheme

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.

This was the first inspection of the service since it had re-registered after changing its location.

Shared Lives has an office base at South Tyneside town hall in South Tyneside. The service provides long term care, respite care and a befriending service. It recruits and supports families who provide homes and supportive placements, within a family setting, for adults with learning disabilities. The service covers South Tyneside. At the time of the inspection the registered manager told us they supported 57 people within Shared Lives carers' homes. There were 91 carers available to support people.

The care service has been developed and designed in line with the values that underpin the Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. These values include choice, promotion of independence and inclusion. People with learning disabilities and autism using the service can live as ordinary a life as any citizen.

A registered manager was in place. 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 said they were safe living with their Shared Lives carers. Carers had received training with regard to safeguarding adults and said they would report any concerns to the service or people's care manager. The service had dealt with any safeguarding concerns appropriately.

Recruitment and vetting procedures were robust to keep people safe. Checks were carried out to ensure carers and staff were suitable. Shared Lives carers went through an extensive assessment process, looking at a range of areas including their backgrounds, health and experience. All carers were approved by a formal assessment panel before being matched with a person to support.

Arrangements were in place to provide support with urgent situations. Carers could contact staff any time during the week or could contact the office for support. Out-of-hours support was provided by the local authority's Emergency Duty Team. Carers said they were well supported and they always received a response to any concerns or queries.

Carers and staff received a range of training. People received appropriate support with their medicines and carers confirmed they had received training in the safe handling of medicines.

People were treated well. They told us that carers spoke kindly and listened to them and they felt happy and comfortable in their homes. People were supported to lead fulfilled lives and to be part of the community. They had access to a range of activities, holidays and leisure pursuits.

People were helped to make choices about their care and the views and decisions they had made about their care were listened to and acted upon. They were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and carers supported them in the least restrictive way possible, the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Information was made available in a format that helped people to understand if they did not read. This included a complaints procedure. People said they knew how to complain.

People were involved in the assessment, planning and review of their care and support. They had access to health care professionals to make sure they received appropriate care and treatment. People’s nutritional needs were met and they enjoyed a varied diet.

The registered manager provided strong leadership. All people maintained the manager was approachable and committed to providing an effective service. The checks that were completed focused on people's experience of care. Where areas for improvement were identified, systems were in place to ensure lessons were learnt and used to improve the service delivery.