Archived: Essex Community Support

Essex Community Support is registered to provide personal care to people with a learning disability, physical disability and autistic people. The service has been recently set up to provide support to people living in supported living. At the time of the inspection, the service was providing personal care to one person living in a purpose-built development of seven flats in Chelmsford.

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.

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

The registered manager promoted a culture where people were at the centre of all that happened. The service was well-run with processes in place to promote safety and ensure people received consistent good quality care. The provider supported the registered manager to develop the service in line with good practice guidance.

There was a focus on enabling people to make decisions about how to minimise risk. Staff supported people safely with their medicines. There were enough safely recruited staff to provide a flexible service. The provider followed national guidance on managing the risks from COVID-19.

Staff had the necessary skills to meet people’s individual needs. They were well supported in their role. Guidance and training were of a good quality. Staff worked well with external agencies to promote people’s health and wellbeing.

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.

Staff were kind and treated people with dignity. They knew people well and developed respectful relationships with them.

Support had been developed flexibly to meet people’s needs in a personalised way. Staff adjusted their support when people’s needs changed. The provider ensured people received information in a manner they could understand. People and their representatives felt able to complain and be confident they would be listened to.

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 autistic people.

The service was able to demonstrate that the service had been set up in line with the underpinning principles of Right support, right care, right culture.

Right support:

• The model of care and setting had been designed to maximise people’s choice, control and independence. There was an emphasis on promoting inclusion into the local community.

Right care:

• Staff were supported to provide care which was person-centred and promoted people’s dignity, privacy and human rights.

Right culture:

• The ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and care staff created a culture focused on enabling people to lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection of a newly registered service.

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.