The Regent

Updated 18 May 2019

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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team:

The inspection was carried out by one inspector and an expert by experience who made telephone calls to people and their relatives. An expert by experience is someone who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of service.

Service and service type:

The Regent provides care and support to people living in a ‘supported living’ setting, so that they can live as independently as possible. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

The service did not have a registered manager at the time of the inspection. A new area manager had been appointed and was in the process of registering with CQC.

Notice of inspection:

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small and the manager is often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.

What we did:

The provider had submitted a Provider Information Return. Providers are required to send us key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections.

We spoke with the local authority safeguarding and commissioning teams, and Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. We took the information they provided into account when carrying out our inspection.

We spoke with three people, three relatives, an area manager, deputy manager and six care staff.

We checked three staff recruitment files, four care plans and a variety of records relating to the quality and safety of the service.

Updated 18 May 2019

About the service: The Regent provides care and support to people living in a ‘supported living’ setting, so that they can live as independently as possible. There were nine people using the service at the time of our inspection.

The outcomes for people using the service reflected the principles and values of Registering the Right Support in the following ways [promotion of choice and control, independence, inclusion] e.g. People's support focused on them having as many opportunities as possible for them to gain new skills and become more independent.

The size of service meets current best practice guidance. This promotes people living in a small domestic style property to enable them to have the opportunity of living a full life.

People’s experience of using this service: People were happy with the care provided and told us staff were kind, helpful and promoted their independence.

Staff were appropriately vetted before starting work to ensure they were suitable to work with potentially vulnerable people. Staff had received training in the safeguarding of vulnerable adults.

We received mixed views about staffing. Some relatives told us there had been a high turnover of staff and there was a small number of vacancies at the time of the inspection. Recruitment was ongoing, and people said they continued to receive the care they needed in a timely manner by staff they were familiar with.

Staff received regular training relevant to their role to support them to care for people effectively.

The privacy and dignity of people was promoted and protected, and staff were aware of the importance of equality, diversity and human rights needs being supported.

At this inspection, staff were clearer about the remit of a supported living service and people were encouraged to be as independent as possible.

Improvements had been made to care planning and person-centred plans were in place which meant people’s physical, social and emotional needs were considered when planning care and support.

Improvements had been made to systems to help the provider monitor the quality and safety 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 and update: Requires Improvement. Published (14 March 2018).

Following the last inspection, we asked the provider to complete an action plan to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider is no longer in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection which was 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.