Choice Supported Living - East

We identified breaches of 5 regulations relating to person-centred care, safe care and treatment, safeguarding, governance and staffing.

The provider did not ensure all risks to people had been identified and mitigated. Where risks had been identified, the management of them was poor. Care plans lacked detailed information which meant there was a risk people may not be supported according to their needs. Staff told us they did not feel supported with adequate training and guidance to manage people’s risks.
We have 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. This assessment found the provider was not reflecting this guidance, and people were not always treated as individuals. For example, people had to be supported as a group and there had been inconsistent support to facilitate people receiving person-centred support.

The provider did not have an effective quality assurance and governance system in place. This had resulted in shortfalls that placed the people who use the service at risk of harm. At the time of our visit the service was led by 2 registered managers. This means that both registered managers and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided. The concerns identified during this assessment were of a nature and seriousness that should reasonably have been identified and addressed through the provider's governance systems. The fact these concerns remained present across multiple locations indicated a failure of provider oversight and quality assurance arrangements. Taken together, these failures demonstrated ongoing and widespread failures in the management of risk, medicines, staffing, safeguarding and governance.

This service is being placed in special measures. The purpose of special measures is to ensure services providing inadequate care make significant improvements. Special measures provide aframework within which we use our enforcement powers in response to inadequate care and provide a timeframe within which providers must improve the quality of care they provide. In instances where CQC have decided to take civil or criminal enforcement action against a provider, we will publish this information on our website after any representations and/or appeals have been concluded.