FitzRoy Supported Living Suffolk

Updated 3 March 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

The inspection team consisted of one inspector.

Service and service type

This service provides care and support to people living in a number of ‘supported living’ settings and in their own homes 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 service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. 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.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave a short period notice of the inspection because we wanted to ensure the inspection could be facilitated.

Inspection activity started on 7 December 2022 and ended on 16 January 2023 with feedback to the registered manager on teams. We visited the location’s services and people’s homes where a regulated activity was taking place on 12 December 2022 and 11 January 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we held about the service since its registration at the current address. We sought feedback from the local authority. 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 all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We met and spoke with 7 people in 3 different settings about their experience of the care provided. We reviewed parts of 5 people’s care records. We spoke with 6 members of staff on the days of our visits, including the registered manager. We received feedback from a further 2 staff and 7 relatives by email. We reviewed 3 staff recruitment files. We received feedback from 3 health and social care professionals.

Updated 3 March 2023

About the service

FitzRoy Supported Living Suffolk is a service providing care to people in several supported living settings and to people in their own homes. The service is registered to provide care to autistic people and people with a learning disability. 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. There were 15 people receiving personal care across 5 different supported living settings at the time of the inspection.

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:

Staff supported people to maximise their independence. People were supported by staff to access their community, shop, prepare food and maintain housekeeping. In some cases, this reduced the level of support they required from staff. People were encouraged to make their own choices. Best interest decisions were made and, involved others such as relatives and professionals but this needed further development. People’s risks in relation to their care was managed, as appropriate. Healthcare professionals such as speech and language therapists and occupational therapists had been consulted. There were enough staff to keep people safe, but not all people were supported by permanent staff who knew them well. The high use of agency staff over an extended time had impacted upon people and staff morale. We were assured that the service was following good infection prevention and control (IPC) procedures to keep people safe.

Right Care:

People and their relatives told us they felt supported by staff in a kind, caring and dignified way. People’s differences were respected by staff and they had undertaken relevant training to effectively support people. Some people’s relatives told us that the care and support needed to be more consistent and provided by staff that knew them well. People’s right to privacy was respected and staff encouraged people to regularly provide feedback about the care provided. Care plans were personalised and included information on people’s healthcare needs, preferences, challenges and hobbies. Some services were located in residential streets, others being quite rural and there were no outward signs to differentiate them from neighbouring properties. The properties were well maintained and reflected choices people made.

People were supported to have choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests. The local authority were supporting further development in this area; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Right Culture:

The culture of the service was open, inclusive and empowered people to live independent lives. Some improvements were required regarding the oversight of the service; these were fed back and positively embraced. Management needed to develop effective audits to look at ways of improving the service and identify issues where learning is then embedded. The staffing crisis must be resolved by the provider as in some cases agency staff have been used for over 2 years. People and their relatives felt their ideas and concerns would be listened to by management. People told us they felt that staff had helped them become more confident and independent. Staff were complimentary about the provider and training offered. Not all staff felt valued. They told us they were able to raise concerns with managers, but resolutions were not always forthcoming or communicated.

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

Rating at last inspection

This last report was good and was published on 29 February 2020.

Why we inspected

We undertook this inspection based upon information received from our system partners.

Follow up

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