Mencap - Merseyside and Lancashire Support Service

People's experience of using this service: We found and heard some very positive examples, but also identified improvement needs. This is a large service and we considered everything we looked at in proportion, to achieve a balanced judgement based on people's experience, which was overall very good.

We considered that to support the consistent safety and quality of such a large service through robust planning and overview, record-keeping and governance needed to be improved. We made a recommendation regarding this. We therefore rated Well-Led as Requires Improvement. This is not a reflection on the positive, person-centred and inclusive culture of the service, which everyone we spoke with talked very highly about.

The outcomes for people using the service reflected the principles and values of Registering the Right Support, by promoting choice, independence and inclusion. People's support focused on them having as many opportunities as possible for them to gain new skills and become more independent.

People felt safe with the support from staff. People told us or showed us in their individual ways that they were happy with their care. Staff and relatives told us about the positive, person-centred and inclusive quality of the service. There were enough staff to meet people's needs and staff support was flexible about individuals' wishes. Staff felt well supported and told us everyone worked well together to provide a good service for people.

People and relatives told us they had no reason to complain, but that staff listened to them and acted on any suggestions. People were supported to be active in ways that were meaningful to them, as well as encouraged to try new things. Staff helped people to build or maintain new relationships within the service, as well as within the wider community. People, relatives and staff were actively engaged in the design and delivery of the service.

Rating at the last inspection: At the last inspection we rated the service as Good (19 October 2016). At the last inspection, we rated the service as Outstanding in Caring. At this inspection, we again heard some very positive examples. However, some of our findings showed that this was not consistent across the service and we therefore rated Caring as Good. Further detail is in our Caring findings in the full report.

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection that was scheduled based on the previous rating. We inspected to check whether the service had sustained its Good rating. We found that the service continued to meet the characteristics of Good in most areas we looked at and the overall rating remained unchanged.