Updated 14 February 2019
The inspection
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team:
One inspector carried out this inspection.
Service and service type:
Shared Lives is a scheme which provides respite, short and long-term care within a family environment for adults who need additional support, for example, learning disabilities, autistic spectrum disorder and older people. Not everyone using Shared Lives receives regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.
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 registered manager 24 hours’ notice of our inspection as Shared Lives Medway is a community based service so the registered manager and the team are often out of the office. We needed to be sure they would be available. Inspection site visit activity started on 22 January 2019 and ended on 25 January 2019. We visited the office location on 22 January 2019 to see the registered manager and office staff; and to review care records, staff records and policies and procedures. We asked the registered manager if they could seek the permission of Shared Lives carers and people using the service to visit them in their home to gain their feedback, and we visited on 23 and 25 January 2019.
What we did:
We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection, in July 2016. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as abuse or serious injury. Providers are required to send us information at least once annually to give some key details about the service including what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. Although the provider had received the form to complete, due to a technical difficulty they did not receive this in time to be able to return it before the inspection.
During the inspection we spoke to three people living in the Shared Lives service, four Shared Lives carers, the registered manager and a Shared Lives social worker.
We reviewed a range of records. This included four people's care records and medication records. We also looked at one staff file and two Shared Lives carers files around recruitment, assessment and supervision and support. We looked at Shared Lives staff and carers training records. We reviewed records relating to the management of the service and policies and procedures implemented by the provider. We also looked at other records the provider kept, such as meetings with people and Shared Lives carers to share their views.