Salutem Supported Living Central

Updated 21 April 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

The inspection team consisted of one inspector.

Service and service type

Ambito Community Services Croydon 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.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection. Inspection activity started on 5 April 2023 and ended on 6 April 2023. We visited the service on 6 April.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke to three people using the service about their experiences of the care and support they received. We also spoke to the registered manager, the regional director, a team leader, and a senior care support worker. We reviewed a range of records including two people’s care records, records relating to staffing levels and recruitment and other records relating to the management of the service including the service’s policies and procedures.

Updated 21 April 2023

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.

At the time of the inspection, the location did not care or support for anyone with a learning disability or an autistic person. However, we assessed the care provision under Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture, as it is registered as a specialist service for this population group.

About the service

Ambito Community Services Croydon provides personal care and support to people living in self-contained flats within a supported living scheme based in the London Borough of Croydon. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of our inspection there were 5 people using the service.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

Right Support

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 made sure people lived in a safe and clean environment that met their needs. People were supported to make decisions following best practice in decision-making. Staff supported people with their medicines in a way that promoted their independence and achieved the best possible health outcome.

Right Care

Staff promoted equality and diversity in their support for people. Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse and 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. Staff and people cooperated to assess risks people might face. Where appropriate, staff encouraged and enabled people to take positive risks.

Right Culture

People led inclusive and empowered lives because of the ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of the registered manager and staff team. Staff placed people’s wishes, needs and rights at the heart of everything they did. Governance processes were effective. The registered manager had good oversight of the service and understanding of people’s needs. Staff evaluated the quality of support provided to people, involving the person, their families and other professionals as appropriate. People were encouraged to work with staff to develop the service and staff valued and acted upon people’s views. People’s quality of life was enhanced by the service’s culture of improvement, learning from incidents 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 25 June 2019).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. We also received some information of concern about the provider relating to the management of safety risks. These did not relate specifically to this service. However, a decision was made for us to examine those risks. We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

The overall rating for the service has remained good, based on the findings of this inspection. We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm at this service, from the concerns we received.

Follow up

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