Churchview Care Services (Taunton)

Updated 24 November 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 was carried out by 3 inspectors. Two inspectors visited people in their homes and the office, and 1 inspector made calls to people’s relatives. A regulatory officer made telephone calls to staff.

Service and service type

This service provides care and support to people living in 4 ‘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. The service is also a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

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 were 2 registered managers in post, 1 was not working at the time of the inspection, the other who was present, also managed another of the provider's services.

Notice of inspection

We gave a short period notice of the inspection because some of the people using it could not consent to a home visit from an inspector. This meant that we had to arrange for a ‘best interests’ decision about this.

Inspection activity started on 10 October 2023 and ended on 24 October 2023. We visited the location’s office/service on 11 October 2023.

What we did before the 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 received feedback from the local authority and reviewed information we held about the service. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We met with 6 people who used the service. Some people were unable to verbally express their views to us, but we were able to observe their interactions with staff. We received feedback from 4 relatives. We spoke with the management team and 9 members of staff. We looked at a variety of records relating to people's personal care and support, and the running of the service. These included, 5 care and support plans, 2 staff recruitment files and a sample of medication administration records. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed.

Updated 24 November 2023

About the service

Churchview Care Services (Taunton) is a domiciliary care and supported living service providing personal care to people with learning disabilities and autistic people living in their own homes. 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. At the time of inspection, the service supported 13 people with the regulated activity personal care.

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

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people. We considered this guidance as there were people using the service who have a learning disability and or who are autistic.

Right Support

Staff enabled people to access specialist health support in the community, however staff did not always follow professional guidance. People received their medicines from trained staff, the recording of people’s medicines needed to be improved.

Right Care

Risks to people were not always fully managed and mitigated. 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.

Right Culture

Improvements were needed to make sure there were effective systems to monitor the quality of the service. Staff turnover had been high, which meant people were supported by agency staff. Regular agency staff were booked to ensure they were familiar with people and their needs. The ethos of the service was to provide person-centred care and promote people's independence. People told us they were happy, and they liked the staff supporting them. The management team and provider were open and transparent throughout our inspection. They acted on queries and our feedback throughout the inspection.

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: The last rating for this service was Requires Improvement (08 June 2023).

The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made in relation to medicines management and safeguarding. The provider remained in breach of regulation relating to governance, and we identified additional concerns relating to risk management.

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to staff not following professional guidance. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

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.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Churchview Care Services (Taunton) on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in regulations relating to risk management and good governance.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow Up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.