Your Life (Welwyn Garden City)

Updated 28 November 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 13 November 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 that someone would be available to support the 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 experiences of the service.

The provider had completed and submitted a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give us some key information about the service, what the service does well and any improvements they plan to make.

We reviewed information we held about the service including notifications. Providers are required to notify the Care Quality Commission (CQC) about events and incidents that occur in the service.

During our inspection we spoke with the area manager, the duty manager and two people who received care and support.

We reviewed some of the records including four people’s care and support plans, two staff files, staff training records and a sample of audits.

Updated 28 November 2018

This inspection took place on 13 November 2018 and was announced.

Your Life (Welwyn Garden City) 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 59 individual apartments within the building (Peel Court). There was an office space and staff provided people with a range of services including personal care, medicines management and cleaning services. At the time of the inspection five people received care and support.

The service did not have the registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (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 our last inspection in May 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 ongoing 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 or neglect. Staff understood their responsibility to safeguard people and knew the action to take if they were concerned about a person safety. There were sufficient numbers of staff available to meet people’s needs. Recruitment processes were robust and helped to ensure that staff were of suitable character to work with vulnerable people. People’s medicines were administered safely when they needed this support. Staff were aware of infection control measures to help reduce the risk of the spread of infection.

Staff continued to receive the training and supervision necessary to carry out their roles effectively and safely. Staff understood the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA). People were supported to access healthcare professionals as required.

Staff continued to provide a service that 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 about the service they received. The provider had effective systems to monitor and improve the quality of the service provided.