My Life Choice

Updated 5 November 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

The Inspection was carried out by two inspectors.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency which is also registered to provide supporting living. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats and specialist housing.

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 the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 11 August and ended on 16 August. We visited the office location on 11 August 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. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with one person who used the service and three relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with or received feedback from eight members of staff including the registered manager, senior support service managers, assistant manager, support workers and student nurse. We had contact with four health and social care professionals.

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

After the inspection

We spoke with and continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found.

Updated 5 November 2021

About the service

My Life Choice is a domiciliary care service, providing personal care and support to people with learning disabilities and/or autism in their own homes, 24 hours a day. 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 the service was supporting a total of three people, all of whom received support with personal care.

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

People were supported by staff who knew how to recognise abuse and raise concerns. Staff had been safely recruited. Staff had a good knowledge of risks associated with providing peoples care. Staff had received adequate training to meet peoples individual care needs.

Medicines were managed safely, and people received them as prescribed. Policies and procedures were in place for the safe administration of medicines and competency checks were completed for staff.

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. Peoples communication needs had been assessed and recorded in their care plans. These detailed the persons preferred method of communication and aids or equipment.

People and their relatives were involved in their care and support planning. This enabled staff to provide the care and support people had agreed was appropriate to them. Staff promoted people’s independence and spent time getting to know their specific needs and wishes. People’s privacy and dignity was respected.

The service worked with external health and social care professionals and specialist learning disability teams to provide effective joined up care. Quality assurance processes were robust and provided oversight of the service. The registered manager had ideas of how to continuously improve people's lives and valued working in partnership with others to achieve this.

Systems were in place to ensure lessons were learned and improvements made when things went wrong. Safeguarding incidents, and complaints were investigated, and outcomes had been provided. People and their relatives told us, “The registered manager will manage complaints and respond accordingly.”

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 statutory guidance which supports CQC 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 reach their personal goals through person-centred approaches from leadership and staff with the right skills and attitudes to achieve this.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 24 July 2019).

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for My Life Choice 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.