Your Life (Eastleigh)

Updated 29 June 2018

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check 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.

This announced inspection took place on 5 June 2018 and was carried out by one inspector The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because it is a small service and we wanted to be certain the registered manager and staff would be available on the day of our inspection. We also wanted to give them sufficient time to make arrangements with people so that we could visit them in their homes to find out their experience of the service.

Due to technical problems, the provider was not able to complete a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.

We reviewed information we held about the service including feedback sent to us from other stakeholders, for example the local authority and members of the public. Providers are required to notify the Care Quality Commission (CQC) about events and incidents that occur including unexpected deaths, injuries to people receiving care and safeguarding matters. We reviewed the notifications the provider had sent us.

During our inspection we spoke with the duty manager, the area manager and two care staff. We also spoke with two people receiving care and support and two relatives.

We looked at the provider's records. These included three people's care records, three staff files, training and supervision records, a sample of audits, satisfaction surveys, staff attendance rosters, and policies and procedures.

Updated 29 June 2018

This inspection site visit took place on 5 June 2018 and was announced.

Your Life (Eastleigh) provides care and support to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for extra care housing; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support service.

There were 56 individual apartments within the building. There was an office base and staff provided people with a range of services including personal care, medicines management and cleaning services. At the time of the inspection six people were receiving care and support.

The service had a registered manager however on the day of our visit they were on annual leave. 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

At our last inspection in March 2016 we rated the service good. At this inspection we found the evidence continued to support the rating of good and there was no evidence or information from our inspection and on-going monitoring that demonstrated serious risks or concerns. This inspection report is written in a shorter format because our overall rating of the service has not changed since our last inspection.

The provider continued to take appropriate steps to protect people from the risk of abuse, neglect or harassment. Staff understood their responsibility to safeguard people and the action to take if they were concerned about a person's safety.

There were sufficient numbers of staff deployed to meet people’s needs.

Recruitment processes were robust and ensured that staff were of suitable character to work with vulnerable people. All staff had been subject to a check by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) and had also been required to provide references prior to commencing employment.

Medicines were administered safely to people when they needed this support. Staff were aware of the infection control measures in place to reduce the risk of the spread of infection.

Staff continued to receive the training required to carry out their roles effectively and new staff had also been supported to undertake a period of induction.

Staff had the skills they needed to support people. Staff were regularly assessed through spot checks to ensure they knew how to support people in a safe, respectful and effective way.

Staff understood the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

People were supported to access healthcare professionals when required.

Staff provided a service which was caring, respectful and promoted people's privacy and dignity.

The provider had a system in place for responding to people's concerns and complaints. People were regularly asked for their views.

There were effective systems in place to monitor and improve the quality of the service provided.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.