L'Arche Kent

Updated 18 May 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

One inspector carried out the inspection.

Service and service type

This service provides care and support to 8 people living in 6 ‘supported living’ settings, 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 service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided. At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave a short notice period of the inspection because we needed to be sure the registered manager was available to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 18 April 2023 and ended on 26 April 2023. We visited the location’s office on 18 April 2023.

What we did before inspection

Before our inspection, we used information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

We looked at the previous inspection report, information about the agency and notifications. A notification is information about important events, which the provider is required to tell us about by law. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with the registered manager about how the service was run. We spoke with a person who used the service and a staff member. We also spoke to the Community leader and the administrator.

We reviewed care plans and risk assessments for 3 people, recruitment records for 3 members of staff and records of accidents and incidences. After the inspection we spoke with three relatives. The registered manager sent us training records, quality audits, meeting minutes and staff rotas. They also sent us some policy and procedures.

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Updated 18 May 2023

About the service

L’Arche Kent supported 15 people in their own homes. Only 8 people received the regulated activity 'personal care'. The rest of the people did not receive regulated support.

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.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. 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.

People’s experience of using this 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 assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Right Support:

People, their relatives and staff were very complimentary about the service. The registered manager promoted an open and inclusive culture where people had support to be themselves and develop their own skills and abilities. The service was well-run with processes in place to promote safety and ensure people received consistent good quality care.

Staff were appropriately trained to meet people's needs and keep them safe. The provider's recruitment procedures helped ensure only suitable staff were employed.

Staff supported people to take their medicines as prescribed by their doctors. Staff monitored the effects of the medicines people received. 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. The service focused on people's strengths and promoted their independence.

Right Care:

Care was person-centred and promoted people's dignity, privacy and human rights. People received kind and compassionate care. Staff 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 with other agencies to do so. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it.

People's care, treatment and support plans reflected their range of needs and this promoted their wellbeing and enjoyment of life.

Risks that people might face were assessed and mitigated. Where appropriate, staff encouraged and enabled people to take positive risks.

Right Culture:

The registered manager was appropriately qualified for their role and had developed effective systems to monitor the quality and safety of the service.

Ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of the registered manager and staff we spoke with ensured people using services lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives. Staff and the management team ensured that people were at the centre of the delivery of care. People were treated as individuals whose life and experiences were considered and factored into care planning.

People who used the service, their relatives, friends and staff were able to contribute their views and the registered manager acted on their feedback. The registered manager worked effectively with other professionals to ensure people received the care they needed.

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 28 March 2018).

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.

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.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for L’Arche Kent on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.