Mercie Grace

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and 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 assessment and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Right Support: Care plans and risk assessments provided staff with guidance of how to provide safe care and support and mitigate known risks. However, care plans were not consistently kept up to date when changes occurred.

People were supported with their prescribed medicines. The provider had taken some actions to make improvements to medicines management and further actions were required. We made a recommendation about medicines management.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Overall, care calls were delivered within the time expected, by a regular core group of staff, who stayed for the duration of the call.

Staff had been recruited safely, and staff received an induction, training and ongoing support. Additional staff training in learning disability and autism was required and the registered manager took immediate action during the inspection to arrange this.

Right Care: People were positive about the kind, caring and respectful approach of care staff. People were involved as fully as possible in discussions and decisions about their care.

Where required, people were supported with eating and drinking. People's health was monitored, and action was taken if a person's health needs changed.

People received care and support based on their individual needs, routines and preferences. People's diverse needs were considered and met. This included their individual communication needs and preferences.

People had access to the provider's complaint procedure. Complaints and incidents were investigated, and actions taken to make improvements.

Right Culture: There was a positive staff culture and partnership working with external agencies. The provider sought and valued feedback from people and staff.

The providers systems and processes were not always effective in helping to identify where improvements were required. However, improvements had been made and were ongoing in developing staff roles and responsibilities.

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