Woodleigh Healthcare (Surrey Branch)

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.

There were 22 people receiving personal care in their houses and flats, and there were 4 people receiving personal care across three supported living services the provider was operating. The service was also operating several other supported living services where people did not receive personal care. As a result, we did not inspect those services.

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. This included training for learning disabilities and autism awareness. People told us the care was generally consistent and staff knew them well. People's right to privacy was respected and staff encouraged people to provide feedback about their care.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Right Culture: The provider's monitoring systems were not always effective in identifying and acting on shortfalls we found during this inspection. For example, we identified areas of improvement in relation to medicines documentation and storage some of which had not been identified by governance systems the provider had in place. Opportunities for improvement could be missed because monitoring systems in place did not consistently act on staff feedback. The provider supplied us with evidence on how they had addressed these shortfalls. We have reported on this in the well-led section of this report.

The culture of the service was open and inclusive. The three supported living services we visited were situated in residential areas and there were no outward signs to differentiate them from other houses in the street. People and their relatives were complimentary about the service and felt their ideas and concerns would be listened to by the registered manager and the provider. People told us they felt they could approach the management of the service with ideas and suggestions they had. Staff were generally complimentary about management and told us they were able to raise concerns if they needed to.