Special People

At this inspection we found the service remained Good.

At the time of our inspection the provider also acted in the role of the registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service and has the legal responsibility for meeting the requirements of the law; as does the provider.

From the contact we had with relatives of children using the service and a social care professional we found that there was usually a good and even very high degree of satisfaction with the way the service worked with people. There was confidence in how the agency worked and felt that staff communicated well and were knowledgeable and skilled.

People who used the service, mostly children, but some adults, had a variety of complex support needs and from the twelve care plans that we looked at we found that the information and guidance provided to staff was clear. Any risks associated with people's care needs were assessed, and the action needed to mitigate against risks was recorded and reviewed regularly.

Care plans were well written, easily accessible and described each person's individual care and support needs. Preferred methods for communicating and how each person liked to be cared for were described with the appropriate guidance for staff about how to do this was in place.

We looked at the training records of the 29 staff that provided personal care. We saw that in all cases, core training had been undertaken and the type of specialised training they required was tailored to the needs of the people they were supporting. We found that staff appraisals were happening annually.

Care staff respected people's privacy and dignity and worked in ways that demonstrated this. Staff worked well to ensure people's preferences were respected, whether they be children or adults.

The provider continued to monitor the quality and performance of the service, seek people's views and respond to those views, which was evident in the experience of the service that relatives shared with us.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.

The five questions we ask about services and what we found