Haven Group Offices

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:

Staff supported people to have the maximum possible choice and control, independence was promoted and they had control over their own lives.

People had a fulfilling and meaningful lives because staff focused on their strengths and promoted what they could do.

People were supported with their medicines in a way that promoted the best possible health outcomes.

People were supported to gain skills and independence.

People were supported by proactive and innovative staff to pursue their interests. People told us they enjoyed a variety of activities in the local community. Staff supported people to identify and achieve their aspirations and goals. People were active members of their community and staff valued people's achievements.

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. Staff supported people to make decisions following best practice in decision-making.

Right Care:

Staff protected and respected people’s privacy and dignity. They understood and responded to their individual needs.

People could communicate with staff and understand information given to them because staff supported them consistently and understood their individual communication needs.

Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. The service worked well with other agencies to do so. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it.

The service had enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe. People’s care, treatment and support plans reflected their range of needs, and this promoted their wellbeing and enjoyment of life. The service supported people with opportunities to try new activities that enhanced and enriched their lives.

Right Culture:

Quality monitoring and auditing of the service was mainly completed at the individual supporting living properties. However, this was not seen to be consistently recorded at the registered location level of the service.

The management oversight of the safety and quality of the service was not always recorded to show how it was analysed or actioned to ensure any themes or trends were identified. We have made a recommendation the provider develops and establishes systems and processes to oversee the quality and safety of the service at management level.

People led inclusive and empowered lives because of the ethos, values, attitudes and behaviors of the management and staff. Staff knew and understood people well and were very responsive, supporting their aspirations to live a quality life of their choosing.

Staff placed people’s wishes, needs and rights at the heart of everything they did. People and those important to them were involved in planning their care. Staff evaluated the quality of support provided to people, involving the person, their families, and other professionals as appropriate.

Staff valued and acted upon people’s views. People’s quality of life was enhanced by the service’s culture of improvement and inclusivity.

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 4 January 2018)

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, responsive and well-led only. For those key question not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has remained the same. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Haven Group Offices on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Recommendations

We have made a recommendation the provider develops and establishes systems and processes to oversee the quality and safety of the service at management level.

Follow Up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

There was a registered manager 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.

At the last inspection the service was rated Good. At this inspection we found the service remained Good.

We found many examples of how activities, local community involvement and ratios of staff allowed one to one support for people. We found this had a hugely positive impact on their lives. For example a relative said, “What a contribution [staff member] had made to his life. The impact from Haven Group staff has made a tremendous difference to [relative].”

People we spoke with who used the service or lived in supported housing told us they were cared for by staff who were extremely supportive and recognised the importance of being as independent as possible. We were consistently told by people who used the service, relatives and health professionals that care provided was of high quality and person centred. People who used the service told us staff were exceptionally kind, respectful and very supportive.

Haven Group management team and staff made efforts for people they supported to place an emphasis upon community participation. People who used the service told us they were encouraged to live active lives and participate as valued members of their community. People were supported to attend various community groups according to their preferred wishes and hobbies.

The service had sufficient staffing levels in place to provide support people required. We saw staff showed concern for people’s wellbeing and responded quickly when people required their help.

The service had systems in place to record safeguarding concerns, accidents and incidents and took necessary action as required. Staff had received safeguarding training and understood their responsibilities to report unsafe care or abusive practices.

People who used the service were encouraged to take risks should they wish to do so. This enabled people to develop new skills and promote their independence. When people who used the service chose to take risks, they were appropriately managed by a competent staff team.

Medication procedures protected people from unsafe management of their medicines. People received their medicines as prescribed and when needed and appropriate records had been completed.

Care was provided in a person centred way. People were routinely involved in their own care planning and the development of their service.

People had been supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

We saw people who lived in supported housing had access to healthcare professionals and their healthcare needs had been met. A social care professional spoke highly about support and guidance provided by the registered manager and staff. They told us staff listened and worked closely with them ensuring people received the right care and support.

People were supported to eat and drink and were encouraged to attend to their own dietary requirements as much as possible with guidance and support when required.

People were provided with support and guidance to meet their aims and goals. For example staff provided one to one support for people who wished to achieve education or employment aims they had chosen.

Care plans were organised and had identified the care and support people required. We found they were informative about care people had received. They had been kept under review and updated when necessary to reflect people’s changing aspirations and needs.

Care records were personalised to each person’s preferences and individual aims and objectives. Information in care plans we looked at consistently referred to people’s dignity and respect.

The service had information with regards to support from an external advocate should this be required by them.

The service had a complaints procedure which was made available to people on their admission to the supported houses and when a service was commissioned in people’s own homes. People who used the service and relatives we spoke with told us they had no complaints but would raise any if the needed to.

The registered manager used a variety of methods to assess and monitor the quality of the service. These included regular audits and meetings to seek their views about the service provided.

During the inspection we looked at care planning, staff recruitment and client survey records.

We visited one of the homes where people lived in supported housing cared for by staff from the agency. One person we spoke with said, 'I have been here a while and love it.'

People who used the agency told us they provided a good service. Comments included, 'The staff are wonderful.' Also, 'I go out a lot on my own but the staff always take care of me.'

We spoke with a member of staff about the way they were recruited. 'It was very thorough and all the checks were completed before I started to work.'

We spoke with Lancashire council's contracts monitoring team, they confirmed there were no concerns with the service being provided by the agency.