25 April 2017
During a routine inspection
Voyage (DCA) South/West Yorkshire provides personal care to 20 people living in seven supported living environments and is registered to provide a service to people with a learning disability and/or autism, older people, people with a physical disability, sensory impairment and younger adults. The office is based in Barnsley.
The service had a registered manager in post at the time of our inspection, but this manager was not managing the service at the time of this inspection. The manager managing the service will be referred to as the acting manager in this report. The acting manager is also a registered manager of another registered location for the same registered provider that provides the same type of service. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons.’ Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
People we spoke with and observed expressed satisfaction with the care and support they received.
We saw there were systems in place to protect people from the risk of harm. Staff we spoke with understood how to protect people from harm and were able to explain the safeguarding procedures to follow should an allegation of abuse be made.
We found the service employed enough staff to meet the needs of the people being supported. Staff had completed training to be able to meet people’s needs, and received regular supervision, which meant they were well supported. Staff also had an annual appraisal of their work.
We found people received a service that was based on their personal needs and wishes. Care records sampled identified people’s needs and preferences within person centred care plans, as well as any risks associated with their care and the environment they lived in.
Where people needed assistance taking their medicines this was administered in a timely way by staff who had been trained to carry out this role.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff support them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
People were provided with information about how to raise a concern and how it would be addressed. People we spoke with told us they were confident that any concerns they raised would be dealt with promptly. The registered provider learnt lessons from concerns and complaints and improved systems and support where required.
There were systems in place to monitor and improve the quality of the service provided.