Voyage (DCA) Cambridge City

Voyage (DCA) Cambridge City is a supported living service providing personal care to people in their own homes. The service provides support to people with a learning disability and/or physical disability, and autistic people. At the time of our inspection there were 52 people using the service, who were all in receipt of the regulated activity of personal care.

People’s experience of the service and what we found:

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 assessment and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Right Support: Care plans and risk assessments provided clear guidance to staff about how to support people in line with their needs and preferences. Healthcare professional guidance was followed to protect people from risks related to conditions such as epilepsy and diabetes and choking risks. People's privacy, dignity, choice and control, and their human rights were upheld. 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. We did find some examples where decision making had not been fully documented. However, upon speaking with staff and the management team, it was evident that the principles of the Mental Capacity Act had been followed. The provider updated these records during the course of our inspection.

Right Care: People received kind and compassionate care, which respected their privacy and dignity. Staff placed people’s wishes, needs and rights at the heart of what they did. Staff knew and understood people well and were passionate about supporting people to live their lives fully.

Right Culture: The management team provided clear leadership to their staff teams. People and their relatives and knew how to contact them if needing to discuss any concerns. Feedback was openly encouraged from people, their relatives and staff, and managers valued all contributions as a way of driving service improvement. There were effective governance systems in place which ensured effective oversight of 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 this service was Good published 8th December 2017.

Why we inspected

The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about staffing, medicines management, restrictive practice, and poor culture amongst staff teams. A decision was made for us to inspect and examine those risks.

We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only. For those key question not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from these concerns.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Voyage (DCA) Cambridge City 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 took place on 24 October 2017 and we gave the provider 24-hours’ notice before we visited to ensure that the registered manager was available to facilitate the inspection

This was the first inspection since Voyage became registered as the provider on 1 November 2016. There was a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) 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 kept as safe as possible because staff were knowledgeable about reporting any suspicions or incidents of harm. There were a sufficient number of staff employed and recruitment procedures ensured that only suitable staff were employed. Staff were supported and trained to do their job.

Risk assessments were in place and actions were taken to reduce these risks. Arrangements were in place to ensure that people were supported and protected with the safe management of their medicines.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is required by law to monitor the operation of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA).Staff we met confirmed that they received training and were able to demonstrate a good understanding of the MCA. This meant that any decisions made on people's behalf by staff would be in their best interest and as least restrictive as possible.

People were supported to access a range of health care professionals and they were provided with opportunities to increase their levels of independence by being able to access a range of activities. Health assessments were in place to ensure that people were supported to maintain their health. The registered manager and support staff were in contact with a range of health care professionals to ensure that people’s care and support was well coordinated.

People had adequate amounts of food and drink to meet their individual preferences and dietary needs.

People’s privacy and dignity were respected and their care and support was provided in a kind, caring and a reassuring way.

People were supported to take part in a range of activities, hobbies and interests that were meaningful to them.

A complaints procedure was in place and complaints had been responded to, to the satisfaction of the complainants. People could raise concerns with the staff at any time.

The provider had quality assurance processes and procedures in place to monitor and develop the quality and safety of people’s support and care. People and their relatives were able to make suggestions in relation to the support and care provided and staff acted on what they were told. There were strong links with the external community.