North East Autism Society

Updated 12 August 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

1 inspector and an Expert by Experience carried out this inspection. 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

This service provides care and support to people living in 19 ‘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 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 a short period of notice of the inspection, to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection and so the provider could make arrangements with people for an inspector to visit them in their home.

Inspection activity started on 14 June 2023 and ended on 11 July 2023. We visited the location’s office on 14 June 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. 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 visited 2 supported living locations and met with 6 people who used the service. We spoke with 10 relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with 10 members of staff including the registered manager, assistant managers, team leaders and support workers. We received written feedback from a further 7 members of staff.

We reviewed a range of records. This included 8 people's care records and 6 medicine records. We looked at 2 staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed.

Updated 12 August 2023

About the service

North East Autism Society provides care and support to people living in 19 ‘supported living’ settings where people are supported to live as independently as possible in their own accommodation. 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. At the time of our inspection there were 29 people using the service who had a learning disability and or autism.

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.

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

Right Support:

Appropriate guidance was not always in place for medicines administration. We have made a recommendation about this.

Staff supported people to play an active role in maintaining their own health and wellbeing. Staff did everything they could to avoid restraining people. The service recorded when staff restrained people, and staff learned from those incidents and how they might be avoided or reduced. This work was being continuously developed and new software was being introduced to improve the analysis of data and share best practice with staff. People were supported by staff to pursue their interests. Staff focused on people’s strengths and promoted what they could do, so people had a fulfilling and meaningful everyday life.

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.

Right Care:

People received kind and compassionate care which supported their needs and focused on their quality of life. Staff protected and respected people’s privacy and dignity. They understood and responded to their individual needs. 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. The service had enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe. There was an ongoing recruitment campaign to minimise the use of agency staff. People could communicate with staff and understand information given to them because staff supported them consistently and understood their individual communication needs.

Right Culture:

People led inclusive and empowered lives because of the ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of the management and staff. People and those important to them, including advocates, were involved in planning their care. Staff ensured risks of a closed culture were minimised so that people received support based on transparency, respect 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 13 September 2019).

Why we inspected

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

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 North East Autism Society on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

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