Archived: The Wilf Ward Family Trust - Supported Living (Northallerton)

The Wilf Ward Family Trust - Supported Living (Northallerton) provides support to people living in their own supported living accommodation. The service supports people with learning disabilities and/or autism with personal care and support in their own homes. At the time of the inspection, the service was supporting thirteen people living in six houses. There were sleeping-in rooms for staff where required in the houses.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

We received positive feedback from people and their relatives who told us they were happy with the support they and their relatives received from the service. People received person-centred support and staff knew people well. Support plans covered all aspects of people’s lives and their preferences to ensure a personalised experience. People were supported to maintain important personal relationships in general and during the pandemic.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, 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 providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.

The service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting the underpinning principles of Right support, Right care, Right culture. People were supported to reach their personal goals through person-centred approaches from leadership and staff with the right skills and attitudes to achieve this.

People’s health and well-being needs were supported from the staff team who encouraged people to develop. People were empowered to have their say and to exercise their rights. Access to an advocacy service was available and used when needed. Systems were in place for communicating with people, their relatives and staff to ensure they were fully involved.

Medicines were safely administered and recorded accurately. Individualised risk assessments were in place. Staff were confident they would raise concerns to safeguard people. Robust recruitment and selection procedures ensured suitable staff were employed.

All essential visitors had to wear appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), provide evidence of a negative COVID-19 test and complete NHS Track and Trace information. Staff completed training in infection prevention and control. The registered manager completed competency checks and regular spot checks with all staff regarding safe use of PPE and infection prevention and control procedures.

People were supported to have choice and control of their own lives where possible and where people needed support from others to make decisions or lacked capacity this wasn’t always recorded or carried out appropriately. We have made a recommendation the effective key question of this report to improve these practices.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 20 November 2019 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This was a planned first rating inspection. We looked at infection prevention and control measures under the Safe key question. We look at this in all inspections even if no concerns or risks have been identified. This is to provide assurance that the service can respond to COVID-19 and other infection outbreaks effectively.