Islington Social Services - 28a King Henrys Walk

At our previous inspection on 31 March 2016, we found that the service was meeting the regulations we looked at and the overall rating was Good.

At this inspection we found the service remained Good.

At the time of our inspection a manager was employed at the service and was undertaking the registration process with the Care Quality Commission. 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.

The service is owned and run by the London Borough of Islington and used the authority's borough wide safeguarding vulnerable adults from abuse procedures. The four members of care staff we spoke with said that they had training about protecting people from abuse, which training records confirmed. All staff we spoke with had a good understanding of how to keep people safe from harm and how to respond if any concerns arose.

We saw that risks assessments concerning people's day to day support needs, healthcare conditions and risks associated with daily living and activities were detailed, and regularly reviewed. The instructions for staff were clear. These instructions informed staff about actions to be taken to reduce these risks and how to respond if new risks emerged.

There were policies, procedures and information available in relation to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards [DoLS] to ensure that people who could not make decisions for themselves were protected. The service was applying MCA and DoLS safeguards appropriately and making the necessary applications for assessments when these were required, which was rare, and informing the CQC when DoLS approvals had been granted.

Care was planned and delivered in a consistent way and the service had good procedures in place to plan

for every stay that people had at the service. Information and guidance provided to staff was clear.

Care plans showed that the service developed methods of communication best suited to people's needs. The care plans described how they could ascertain each person's wishes to maximise opportunities for people to make as many choices that they were meaningfully able to make.

The service and the provider carried out regular audits of all aspects of the service. The provider carried out regular external reviews of the service and sought people's feedback on how the service operated.

At this inspection we found that the service met all of the regulations that we looked at.

The five questions we ask about services and what we found