Dorset office

The provider had the service user band of learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder however at the time of our inspection had not yet supported anyone who had a main need that fell into this banding. We assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed autistic people and people with a learning disability respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. The provider assured us they would provide people with a learning disability or autistic people would receive appropriate person-centred care.

The provider was proactive in sharing learning with the staff team such as following up incidents or accidents or day-to-day information gathered while providing care to people. They worked with people’s relatives and health and social care professionals to enable smooth transitions between services and had a robust approach should abuse be suspected. We noted some aspects of medicines management needed to be improved however the improvements were made before we completed our inspection.

Care plans were created following comprehensive assessments of needs and were updated as and when needed or when there was new learning about the person. Staff were trained in a range of health and social care topics and information about the latest good practice approaches was shared with the teams during team meetings.

Regular reviews of peoples care plans and staff competency took place and outcomes shared accordingly. Care plans were reviewed with people and those important to them.

We received positive feedback about staff from health and social care professionals. Feedback from staff indicated people were very much treated as individuals and supported in a person-

centred way. Support was able to be flexible and enabled staff to attend should emergencies happen out of the main service hours.

There was strong leadership from the registered manager who was also the nominated individual. They had extensive knowledge of social care and if necessary, they knew where to go to obtain advise. We did note their mandatory training was overdue to be renewed.

There was an open culture, and staff and people would not hesitate to raise concerns and ask questions. While there were governance systems in place, these had not identified the shortfalls we found in medicines administration.