23 July 2015
During a routine inspection
This inspection took place on the 23 July and was announced.
Autism Care Community Services (Milton Keynes) is a supported living and domiciliary care service which provides care and support to people who may have a range of care needs. These include learning disabilities and autistic spectrum disorders.
At the time of this inspection the service was supporting 21 people across four separate houses and people living in their own homes.
A registered manager was in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
People felt safe and staff had been provided with training to recognise the signs of potential abuse of harm. We found that the outcome from safeguarding alerts was discussed with staff to minimise the risk of recurrence.
There were processes in place to manage identifiable risks and to ensure people’s freedom was not restricted unnecessarily.
There were sufficient numbers of staff employed with the right skills and knowledge to meet people’s assessed needs and to promote their safety.
Recruitment checks were carried out on new staff to ensure they were suitable to work with people who used the service.
There were systems in place to ensure people received their medicines appropriately and at the prescribed times.
Staff had been provided with the appropriate training to carry out their roles and responsibilities.
The service worked to the key principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. When required capacity assessments were undertaken if it was found that people could not make decisions about their care and support.
People chose what they wished to eat and drink; and staff supported them with food shopping and cooking.
People were registered with a GP of their choice and if required had access to health care facilities.
Staff treated people with kindness and compassion. They were enabled to express their views and their privacy and dignity were promoted.
People’s needs were assessed to ensure that the service could appropriately meet their needs.
There was a complaints procedure which was written in an appropriate format to enable people to raise concerns if they needed to.
There were systems in place to monitor the quality of the care provided, which was used to drive continuous improvements.