Naswell Care LTD

Updated 3 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

This inspection was carried out by 2 inspectors.

Service and service type

This service provides care and support to people living in number of ‘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 no registered manager in post, however a new manager had been employed and supported this inspection. They had recently been interviewed and were now registered with CQC.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was announced.

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or manager would be in the office to support the inspection and we wanted to be sure people would be at home to speak with us.

Inspection activity started on 27 June 2023 and ended on 6 July 2023. We visited the location’s office/service on 27 and 28 June 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection and their latest inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. The provider was not asked to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR) prior to this inspection. A PIR is information providers send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We visited 2 people in their homes and spoke to the staff members who supported them. We received feedback from two people’s relatives about their experience of the care provided. We also spoke with the nominated individual, the manager, Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) Consultant and office administrator. We also received feedback from 9 staff by email and 3 staff by telephone.

The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

We reviewed a range of records, this included three people’s care and medication records. We looked at staff recruitment files and a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures.

Updated 3 August 2023

About the service

Naswell Care Ltd is a supported living service providing personal care to people who may live in single or shared occupancy households with their own tenancy agreements. At the time of the inspection, the service was supporting 3 people with personal care living in single households of different sizes.

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.

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:

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. Effective systems were in place to involve people in decisions about their care or lawfully in their best interest.

People’s views about their wishes and goals were supported. Staff promoted people's choice and independence and ensured they had access to a range of individualised activities.

People’s physical and emotional needs had been assessed. Comprehensive care and medicines plans were in place which guided staff on how to support people and included strategies needed to reduce their risks which were known by staff.

Further time was needed for the provider’s systems to be developed and embedded to monitor people’s needs, incidents, records, and governance of the service. More information was needed around the management of people’s routine health assessments and their health needs as people grow older.

Right Care:

People were supported by a regular and caring staff team who knew them well. The quality of people’s life had improved.

Staff and managers were committed to providing person-centred support which focused on people’s individual needs and wishes.

Staff had been safely recruited and had received the training and support they needed to support people. Plans were in place to enhance staff development.

People’s communication needs had been assessed and were being supported.

Right Culture:

The culture of service supported people to reach their potential and achieve their goals. People were empowered to live a life of their choice. The manager and provider valued feedback from people, relatives, staff and other stakeholders to help them drive improvement and improve the quality of people’s lives.

Managers and staff were aware of current care practices when supporting people with a learning disability and autism. The manager had recognised the provider’s policies needed to be reviewed to reflect their practices.

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 inadequate (published 9 December 2022).and there were breaches of regulation.

The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. We met with the provider regularly to discuss their progress in completing their actions.

Why we inspected

This service has been in Special Measures since 9 December 2022. We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe, Effective and Well-led which contain those requirements. This inspection was carried out to follow up on action we told the provider to take at the last inspection.

During this inspection the provider demonstrated that improvements have been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is no longer in Special Measures.

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 Inadequate to Requires improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

Follow up

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

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