The Grange Supported Living Service

Date of assessment: 22 August 2024

The Grange Supported Living Service is registered to provide personal care for people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people, people with physical disabilities and people with sensory impairments. The service provides personal care on-site and in the wider community. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of the assessment site visit, there were 10 people receiving a regulated activity.

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’ (RSRCRC) 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. During this latest assessment, we found the service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting the underpinning principles of RSRCRC in the areas we reviewed.

We initially started a remote assessment of the service on 7 August 2024. We visited the service unannounced on 22 August 2024. The site visit was carried out by 2 inspectors.

The remote assessment was undertaken by 2 inspectors and 1 expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

At our last inspection, we rated this service good in all areas and overall (report published 6 March 2019). Following this latest assessment, the rating remains good.

As part of this latest assessment, we spoke with 1 person who used the service and 6 relatives. We spoke with 7 members of staff and reviewed documentation including policies, care records, training records, governance records and procedures.

We completed this focused assessment because we received concerns from partners in relation to the safety of care provided.

We found the provider looked at lessons which could be learnt from events and these were reported to the relevant authorities appropriately. Staff knew how to keep people safe and completed regular training to understand how to recognise signs of abuse and how to respond. Staff understood the principles of the Mental Capacity Act and how to ensure people’s rights were respected. Staff promoted people’s independence and empowered them to live fulfilling lives. There were sufficient staff to meet people’s needs. Staff were recruited safely and relevant checks were completed prior to commencing employment. The provider had effective systems in place to maintain the premises and had completed relevant safety checks to detect potential risks.

The provider ensured there was a clear governance structure in place and staff understood their responsibilities. The provider had undertaken audits to monitor the quality of care and took steps to improve it. The service had an emergency management and business continuity plan in place. The registered manager had notified CQC of important events that happened in the service in line with legal requirements.