Richmond and Kingston DCA

Kingston and Richmond DCA is a domiciliary care and 'supported living' service and registered to provide personal care and support to people who have a learning disability or complex needs in their own homes. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. 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 inspection there were 26 people receiving personal care in 8 different supported living settings and also in their own homes. We visited people who lived in self-contained flats, adapted houses where people had their own bedroom and sometimes individual or shared bathrooms and as well as shared communal areas.

At the last inspection the service provided was not always safe for people to use as their medicines were not always managed safely and there were poor hygiene practices. Support visits did not always occur at the agreed time or last for the agreed duration and learning from incidents and accidents was not always done in a timely way. The service was not always well-led as the quality assurance system was not always used appropriately to assess and monitor the quality of the service and some audits were incomplete. The provider did not always demonstrate a strong focus on capturing learning to improve the service. The analysis of incidents and accidents was not always robust and there was inconsistent oversight of the operations at the various settings.

At this inspection people's medicines were managed safely, good hygiene practices were in place, support visits took place on time and lasted the agreed duration and accidents and incidents were learnt from. The quality assurance system identified, monitored and addressed service shortfalls, audits were completed and operations at the various settings were appropriately overseen.