Archived: Scope Lancashire Community Services

Scope Lancashire Community Services is registered to provide personal care and support to people living in their own homes. Support is provided to people with learning disabilities, sensory impairments and people with physical disabilities. Some people received support through several visits per day and some people were receiving support 24 hours a day. 13 people were using the service at the time of our inspection visit. This was the first inspection of the service since registering with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in November 2016.

A requirement of the provider's registration is that they have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the CQC 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 2008 and associated regulations about how the service is run. At the time of our inspection the registered manager was unavailable and had been unavailable since August 2017. They were due to return to work at the end of November 2017. The service had kept the CQC informed of this and in the absence of the registered manager we spoke with the area manager and the interim service manager to conduct the inspection. The interim service manager was running the service in the absence of the registered manager; we therefore refer to them as 'the manager' in the body of this report.

The manager and staff understood their responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) to ensure people were looked after in a way that did not inappropriately restrict their freedom or choices. However, some improvements were required around areas of re-assessment of people’s capacity. A recommendation has been made about this in the ‘Effective’ section of this report.

Most of the people who used the service could not express their views to us but their relatives told us that their family members felt safe with staff and staff treated them well. There were enough staff employed at the service to care for people safely and effectively. People were supported by staff who knew them well.

Checks had been completed before new staff started work to make sure they were safe to work with people in their own homes. The manager and staff understood how to protect people they supported from abuse and knew what procedures to follow to report any concerns.

Staff were supported by the manager through regular meetings. There was an out of hours' on call system in operation that ensured management support and advice was always available for staff. Staff felt their training and induction supported them to meet the needs of people they cared for.

People were protected from the risk of abuse. We noted that care plans and risk assessments were reviewed and updated when people’s health care needs changed or when new risks were identified.

Medicines were administered safely and people received their medicines as prescribed. People were supported to attend appointments with health care professionals when they needed to and received healthcare that supported them to maintain their wellbeing.

People were supported with their health needs and had access to a range of healthcare professionals where a need had been identified. Health professionals provided positive feedback about their relationships with the management and staff, which demonstrated people received effective healthcare. People were encouraged to eat a balanced diet that took account of their preferences and, where necessary, their nutritional needs were monitored.

The service had a person centred culture that was understood by staff. Where possible people were involved in planning their own care, often with the support of relatives, advocates and health professionals. This ensured care matched their individual needs, abilities and preferences from their personal perspective. Activities, hobbies and interests were based around people's wishes.

People and their relatives thought staff were kind and responsive to people's needs and people's privacy and dignity was respected. Staff offered people ways to maintain and develop their independence and increase their life skills.

Staff were positive about ways in which the service was managed and the support received from the management team. They described a positive working environment.

People's relatives were encouraged to share their views about how the service was run. People knew how to make a complaint and the one complaint that was received was fully investigated and responded to. The provider used the information from complaints and feedback to improve their service by acting on the information they received.

Quality assurance procedures were in place across the provider's group of services. Information was shared across each of the provider's services to ensure lessons learned drove forward improvements. Accidents and incidents were investigated and actions were taken to minimise the risks of a re-occurrence. There was a culture within the service to learn from feedback, audits, and incidents to continuously improve the service provided.