FitzRoy Supported Living Suffolk

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 assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Right Care: People and their relatives told us they felt supported by staff in a kind, caring and dignified way. People's differences were respected by staff and they had undertaken relevant training to effectively support people.

Some people's relatives told us that the care and support needed to be more consistent and provided by staff that knew them well. People's right to privacy was respected and staff encouraged people to regularly provide feedback about the care provided. Care plans were personalised and included information on people's healthcare needs, preferences, challenges and hobbies. Some services were located in residential streets, others being quite rural and there were no outward signs to differentiate them from neighbouring properties. The properties were well maintained and reflected choices people made.

People were supported to have choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests. The local authority were supporting further development in this area; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Right Culture: The culture of the service was open, inclusive and empowered people to live independent lives. Some improvements were required regarding the oversight of the service; these were fed back and positively embraced. Management needed to develop effective audits to look at ways of improving the service and identify issues where learning is then embedded. The staffing crisis must be resolved by the provider as in some cases agency staff have been used for over 2 years. People and their relatives felt their ideas and concerns would be listened to by management. People told us they felt that staff had helped them become more confident and independent. Staff were complimentary about the provider and training offered. Not all staff felt valued. They told us they were able to raise concerns with managers, but resolutions were not always forthcoming or communicated.