Supportive Care Services Ltd

We assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted.

The assessment was to follow up on any improvements following the service’s last assessment. We have assessed the service against all the quality statements in the key questions of safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

The provider’s governance systems were not always effective in identifying concerns related to reviews of people’s care needs and broader systems to monitor the quality and safety of people’s care. The provider’s checks on staff competencies, and people’s care plans and risk assessments had not always been effective. However, there had been some improvements made to updating people’s care needs and identifying risk in people’s care plans and risk assessments. There had been some improvement in the monitoring of staff training needs. However, the checks in place to observe staff’s competencies to administer medication requirement improvement. The provider oversight of recruitment records still required some further development. However, overall recruitment practices had improved to some extent.

The provider was still developing a learning culture within the service, to ensure improvements were made when things went wrong. The provider had engaged the services of an independent consultant to assist them with the required improvements.

Staff told us they had received the required training to support them in their role. This included training for people’s specific health conditions such as diabetes awareness and epilepsy awareness. All staff had completed their safeguarding training and were aware of the steps to take to protect people from the risk of abuse. Staff received supervision and told us they felt supported by the provider. There were enough staff available to support people.

There were no concerns identified with infection control practices.

Staff understood the importance of supporting people’s independence and gaining people’s consent and involved people in decisions about their care. Staff protected people’s privacy and dignity and treated them as individuals supporting their individual preferences.

The provider told us they had processes in place to investigate incidents, accidents, complaints and safeguarding concerns. We were unable to assess the effectiveness of these processes because the provider told us there had been no complaints, incidents, accidents or safeguarding concerns since their last assessment.

Staff told us they felt supported to give feedback and were treated well, free from bullying or harassment. Staff told us they understood their roles and responsibilities. The provider took a positive approach to our assessment and considered it an opportunity for continued learning to make improvements.

The provider was previously in breach of the legal regulation in relation to the processes to monitor and improve the quality of the service. At this assessment, we found there was not enough improvement made and the provider continued to be in breach of this regulation.

The provider was previously in breach of the legal regulations in relation to assessing risks to the health and safety of people; the safe recruitment of their staff; and providing their staff with the appropriate training. Enough improvements were found at this assessment and the provider was no longer in breach of these regulations.

This service has been in Special Measures since May 2023. The provider demonstrated some improvements that have been made. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is no longer in Special Measures.