Hull Shared Lives Scheme

Updated 21 September 2022

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 completed by one inspector and an Expert by Experience. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type

The Wilson Centre is a shared lives scheme, they recruit, train and support self-employed shared lives carers (SLC) who offer accommodation and support arrangements for vulnerable adults within their own family homes in the community.

Registered Manager

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the CQC 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

This inspection was announced. We gave a short period of notice of the inspection, because we needed to be sure the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support our site visit.

Inspection activity started on 30 June 2022 and ended on 22 July 2022. We visited the location’s office on 5 July 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we received about the service since it was registered. We sought feedback from professionals who work with the service. We used information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and any improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with seven people who used the service and three people's relatives about their experience of the care provided.

We spoke with six members of staff including the registered manager, shared lives officers (responsible for overseeing the shared lives scheme) and SLC. We also received written feedback from two SLC.

We used technology such as electronic file sharing to enable us to review some documentation remotely. This included nine people's care records and five files in relation to the recruitment, training and supervision of shared lives carers. A variety of other records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were also reviewed.

Updated 21 September 2022

About the service

The Wilson Centre is a shared lives scheme, which provides people with long-term placements, short-breaks and respite care, within shared lives carers’ (SLC) own homes.

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 the Care Quality Commission (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.

The service was not able to demonstrate how they were meeting some of the underpinning principles of Right support, right care, right culture.

People were at risk of receiving ineffective or unsafe care, because the service was not well-led. Robust systems and processes were not in place to make sure people’s care was safe, that it met their needs and to ensure it guaranteed good outcomes.

Right Support: People benefited from living as part of SLC’s families and from the individualised and person-centred support that came with this model of care. People had choices and felt the support they received promoted their independence. However, regular and robust reviews and monitoring visits were not always completed to make sure people’s needs were being met and to ensure the service was supporting people to achieve consistently good outcomes.

People’s support did not guarantee they would have maximum choice and control of their lives or that staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did not support this practice.

Right Care: People’s support promoted their privacy, dignity and independence. People told us their SLC were kind and caring. However, care plans and risk assessments did not always contain detailed information about people’s needs, risks or provide sufficient guidance on how those needs should be met. Whilst people gave positive feedback about the support provided; these issues meant we could not be assured people would receive consistently effective care.

Right Culture: People were at increased risk of receiving ineffective or unsafe care. There was a lack of oversight of risk, and robust governance arrangements were not in place. This meant the quality and safety of people’s care was not assured. For example, robust systems were not in place to ensure people received safe support with their prescribed medicines. There were significant gaps in staff’s training, which increased the risk of people receiving ineffective or unsafe care. Systems for identifying and managing risks were ineffective. This meant we could not be certain problems with people’s care and support would be quickly identified and addressed. Audits had not been used to identify and address the concerns found during 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

This service was registered with us on 10 September 2019 and this is the first inspection. The last rating for the service at the previous premises was good, published on 28 June 2018.

Why we inspected

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

Enforcement and Recommendations

We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection. We will continue to monitor the service and will take further action if needed.

We identified breaches or regulation in relation to the safety of the service and the provider’s leadership and governance arrangements at this inspection.

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