Archived: Vital HealthCare Services Limited

Vital Healthcare Services Limited is a supported living service providing personal care to people who live in their own homes across Suffolk.

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 the inspection, a total of eight people were using the service and receiving personal care.

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.

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

Right Support:

• People told us that the support from staff was kind and caring and we observed staff offering people choices about daily living.

• People were supported to participate in a range of activities and to access the community facilities.

• Staff were not always clear about restrictive practices and the use of restraint, therefore there was a risk that people may not receive the right support. The provider told us that they were providing breakaway training to staff.

• There were gaps in risk assessments in key areas such as health plans which placed people at risk of not receiving the right support when they needed it.

Right Care:

• People were supported to maintain relationships with friends and family, and we saw that there were a variety of arrangements in place reflecting people’s individuality.

• People were supported by a core team of staff however there was a high staff turnover and staff changes impacted on people. We have made a recommendation regarding training.

• Staff were clear about how people communicated and had access to tools to support this.

• Risks to people’s safety were not always identified and effectively managed.

• Incident reports were not always fully completed so it was not always clear what actions staff took to protect people in the future.

Right Culture:

• Efforts were being made to promote a caring culture and the service implemented value based recruitment to ensure that the staff they appointed had the right values.

• There were quality assurance systems in place, but they were not robust and had not independently identified some of the shortfalls that we had found to ensure people consistently received a good service.

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 the service was good (published 2 August 2021.)

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

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 changed from good to requires improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Vital Healthcare on our website at www.cqc.org.uk. We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the Safe, Effective and Well Led sections of this full report.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full 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.

Vital Healthcare Services Limited is a supported living service providing personal care to people who lived in their own homes across Suffolk.

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 the inspection, a total of 19 people were using the service.

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

People were supported and encouraged to participate in a range of activities of their choice and to access the community facilities as discussed and agreed with them, families and other professionals. People and their relatives had access to a clear complaint’s procedure. People’s support plans were reviewed every six months or more frequently if so required in relation to events.

All of the people using the service and relatives we spoke with told us staff were kind and caring.

The support people received was personalised and adapted flexibly in response to changing needs and preferences. Staff supported people to live full lives and achieve outcomes in a planned way. Staff treated people with dignity and respect and spent time getting to know them and their specific needs and wishes. People’s support plans reflected their likes and dislikes.

The staff carried out risk assessments to support people to retain their independence. Staff had received training regarding how to protect people from harm and were aware of the safeguarding procedures. There were sufficient numbers of staff employed to meet people's assessed needs. People received their prescribed medicines from staff trained in the administration of medicines. The service operated a robust recruitment process to employ staff who were suitable to work for the service. People were protected from the risks associated with the spread of infection.

People’s needs were assessed prior to them using the service and were supported to eat and drink in accordance with their support plan. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. The service had appropriate arrangements in place to ensure staff received training relevant to their role. New staff completed an induction training programme.

The management team held regular meetings to discuss the monitoring of the quality of the service provided to help ensure people received safe and effective support. This included seeking and responding to feedback from people, relatives and professionals in relation to the standard of the support provided. Staff felt supported by the management team.

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 the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.

The service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting the underpinning principles of Right support, right care, right culture.

Right support:

¿ People had individual tenancies in their own home or small home with a few others. This model of care maximised people’s choice, control and independence. Care and support had been developed around individual assessed needs. Staff worked in a way which promoted people's independence.

Right care

¿ Care was person-centred and promoted people's dignity, privacy and human rights. People confirmed their privacy and dignity was respected. Support plans were person centred and ensured the person was involved in the development and review of their plan as far as possible. Training and support for staff ensured human rights was at the heart of the delivery of care and support.

Right culture:

¿ Ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of the manager and staff ensured people using services lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives. People’s diverse needs were assessed, supported and respected. People were supported to make choices and live the life they chose.

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 09 January 2020 and this is the first inspection.

The last rating for the service under the previous premises was rated good, published on 11 January 2019.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.