East Cheshire Housing Consortium

Updated 5 February 2021

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

This inspection was carried out by one inspector.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats and specialist housing. Specialist housing consisted of eleven ‘supported living’ settings, where people receive support to live as independently as possible. East Cheshire Housing Consortium refers to these settings as ‘schemes’. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection

We gave a short period of notice of the inspection because we needed to seek consent to speak to people receiving support before we visited the office location.

Inspection activity started on 07 January 2021 and ended on 19 January 2021. We visited the office location on 11 January 2021.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with five people who used the service by telephone about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with eight members of staff including the registered manager, one board member, one senior manager, one team leader and four support workers.

We reviewed a range of records. This included six people’s care records and four medication records. We looked at four staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed.

After the inspection

We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found. We looked at the training data and quality assurance records.

Updated 5 February 2021

About the service

East Cheshire Housing Consortium is a community-based service providing support to 92 people at the time of the inspection. People receiving a service require varying levels of support as a result of ongoing mental health needs, ranging from 24-hour support in a supported living setting to domiciliary support. During the inspection we identified many people receiving support, also had a learning disability or were autistic.

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.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People were supported by staff who had received a detailed induction and suitable training to meet people’s needs. People receiving support spoke positively of the care and support they received and told us they were happy.

Systems were in place to manage risks to people’s health and wellbeing and medicines were managed safely.

The service was well-led. Staff felt well supported by an open and honest culture. The provider also worked effectively with other professionals and organisations to ensure positive outcomes were achieved for people. Robust systems had been introduced which ensured there was an improved level of oversight and monitoring of the quality of support being provided to people.

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

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, 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 providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.

The service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting the underpinning principles of Right support, right care, right culture. People were supported to be as independent as possible and a person-centred approach was clearly demonstrated in support plans. People were consulted on the support they received and changes which affected their life. Support plans were regularly reviewed with people to ensure they received the support they wanted.

Right support:

• Model of care and setting maximises people’s choice, control and independence

Right care:

• Care is person-centred and promotes people’s dignity, privacy and human rights

Right culture:

• Ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and care staff ensure people using services lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (01 May 2019) and there were multiple breaches of regulation. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this service on 01 April 2019. Breaches of legal requirements were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve safe care and treatment, staffing, need for consent and good governance.

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions of Safe, Effective and Well-led which contain those requirements.

The ratings from the previous comprehensive inspection for those key questions not looked at on this occasion were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for East Cheshire Housing Consortium on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.