14 March 2023
During a routine inspection
About the service
Lifeways Community Care (Warwickshire & Coventry) is a supported living service providing personal care to people with learning disabilities and autistic people living in their own homes. 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. At the time of the inspection there were 19 people receiving personal care.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Right Support:
Most 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. For one person further review was required to ensure they were being supported to maximise their capacity and choices.
Some people’s care plans did not contain key information on how to support them, but staff knew people well. Staff received training and had competency assessments to ensure they had the skills to work with people.
Right Care:
The quality of person-centred care people received across the different supported living settings was not consistent. In one setting improvements were required to ensure people received care that supported their needs and aspirations, whilst in other settings this was in place for people.
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.
People told us they received care from staff who were kind. We found however, that some language used in care plans needed improvements to ensure people were treated with dignity and respect.
Right Culture:
The management team were making changes to promote a positive culture and people and staff told us they had seen improvements. These improvements required further embedding and to be applied consistently to ensure people’s wishes, needs and rights were at the heart of everything they did. The registered manager was quick to respond to the concerns we identified on inspection, however systems needed improving to ensure concerns were identified to ensure a culture of continuous improvement.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection and update
The last rating for this service was inadequate (published 24 January 2023) and there were breaches of regulation. At this inspection we found improvements had been made however, there were ongoing breaches of regulation 9, person-centred care and regulation 17 good governance.
This service has been in Special Measures since 27 September 2022. During this inspection the provider demonstrated that improvements have been made. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is no longer in Special Measures.
Why we inspected
We carried out an unannounced comprehensive inspection of this service on 25 July 2022. Breaches of legal requirements were found. We undertook this inspection to check if they now met legal requirements.
You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.
Enforcement and Recommendations
We have identified continued breaches in relation to person-centred care and governance. We have imposed conditions on the provider's registration and asked them to send a monthly report that shows what action they are taking.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.