Heart of England Mencap DCA Central

Updated 17 March 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 team consisted of two inspectors.

Service and service type

Heart of England Mencap DCA Central is registered as a domiciliary care service. It provides personal care to people in their own homes and supported living locations. It also provides personal care to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. The accommodation is bought or rented and is the occupant’s own home. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for extra care housing; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

The service is provided to people with a learning disability or autistic spectrum disorder.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. 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.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because the service is small and people are often out and we wanted to be sure there would be people at home to speak with us.

Inspection activity started on 2 February 2022 and ended on 3 February 2022. We visited the office location on 3 February 2022

What we did before the inspection

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 information gathered as part of monitoring activity that took place on 29 December 2021t to help plan the inspection and inform our judgements. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with seven people that used the service (people who used the service who were unable to talk with us used different ways of communicating including using Makaton, pictures, photos, symbols, objects and their body language). We spoke with seven staff including the registered manager, community services support manager, director of operations, service managers and care staff. We also spoke with seven relatives of people that used the service. We reviewed five people’s support plans in full and reviewed specific aspects within other people’s care records. We looked at medicine records, training records and records relating to the management of the service.

Updated 17 March 2022

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.

About the service

Heart of England Mencap is registered as a domiciliary care service which provides personal care to people in their own homes and within supported living accommodation. At the time of our inspection there were twenty-two people using the service.

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

Right support:

• Staff focused on people’s strengths and promoted what they could do, so people had a fulfilling and meaningful everyday life.

• People were supported by staff to pursue their interests.

• Staff supported people to achieve their aspirations and goals.

• The service made reasonable adjustments for people so they could be fully in discussions about how they received support, including support to travel wherever they needed to go.

• Staff supported people to take part in activities and pursue their interests in their local area and to interact online with people who had shared interests.

• Staff enabled people to access specialist health and social care support in the community.

• Staff supported people to make decisions following best practice in decision-making. Staff communicated with people in ways that met their needs.

Right care:

• People received kind and compassionate care. 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.

• People could communicate with staff and understand information given to them because staff supported them consistently and understood their individual communication needs.

• People who had individual ways of communicating, using body language, sounds, Makaton (a form of sign language), pictures and symbols and could interact comfortably with staff and others involved in their care and support because staff had the necessary skills to understand them.

• People’s care, treatment and support plans reflected their range of needs and this promoted their wellbeing and enjoyment of life.

• People received care that supported their needs and aspirations, was focused on their quality of life, and followed best practice.

• People could take part in activities and pursue interests that were tailored to them. The service gave people opportunities to try new activities that enhanced and enriched their lives.

• Staff and people cooperated to assess risks people might face. Where appropriate, staff encouraged and enabled people to take positive risks.

Right culture:

• People received good quality care, support and treatment because trained staff and specialists could meet their needs and wishes.

• People were supported by staff who understood best practice in relation to the wide range of strengths, impairments or sensitivities people with a learning disability and/or autistic people may have. This meant people received compassionate and empowering care that was tailored to their needs.

• Staff knew and understood people well and were responsive, supporting their aspirations to live a quality life of their choosing.

• Staff placed people’s wishes, needs and rights at the heart of everything they did.

• Staff evaluated the quality of support provided to people, involving the person, their families and other professionals as appropriate.

• The service enabled people and those important to them to worked with staff to develop the service. Staff valued and acted upon people’s views.

• People’s quality of life was enhanced by the service’s culture of improvement and inclusivity.

• Staff ensured risks of a closed culture were minimised so that people received support based on transparency, respect and inclusivity.

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 25 June 2019) 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. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

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

Why we inspected

We undertook this inspection to assess that the service is applying the principles of Right support right care right culture.

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.

Follow up

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