Archived: Tower House

Updated 7 March 2018

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This unannounced inspection was carried out on 30 and 31 January 2018 by one adult social care inspector.

Before our inspection we reviewed the information we held about the service. This included the statutory notifications sent to us by the provider about incidents and events that had occurred at the service. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send to us by law. We also contacted the local authority to gather their feedback about the service. They told us the service was open and transparent in reporting any concerns and worked in partnership with the local authority.

During the inspection we spent time at the service’s office and we visited people at their homes. We met and spoke with 10 people who were supported by the service. We also spoke with five people’s relatives by telephone. We spoke with 15 members of staff who held different roles within the service. This included the Quality and Development Manager and the two registered managers.

We looked at a range of documentation including eight people’s care records, medication records, 10 staff recruitment and personnel files, staff training records, accident and incident information, health and safety records, safeguarding and complaints records, audits, policies and procedures and records relating to the quality checks undertaken by staff and other management records.

Updated 7 March 2018

This unannounced inspection was carried out on 30 and 31 January 2018 by one social care inspector.

Tower House is part of a wide range of services provided by the registered charity Autism Together. The service manages the charity’s supported living services on the Wirral. The service provides support for people who live in their own homes in shared accommodation or single tenancies. The service supports approximately 70 people to manage their tenancy agreements for the place they live in. The service provides varying degrees of personal care and support for people with autism. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

The service had two registered managers, who had both worked for the organisation for many years. 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.

We last inspected the service in April 2015 and gave it an overall rating of good. At this inspection we found that the service remained good.

We spoke with the people supported by the service and their relatives who gave us positive feedback about the service and the staff providing the support. We saw that people were supported to live independent lives and spend their time doing things they enjoyed. They were supported by staff who treated people as individuals and knew the people they were supporting well.

Medication was stored, administered and recorded safely and people told us they received their medicines on time and with the support they needed. Staff responsible for the administration of medicines had received training to ensure they had the competency and skills required.

Staff were safely recruited and received regular supervisions and appraisals to support them in their roles. The service had an effective system in place to monitor, record and book training for staff to ensure they had the skills and knowledge they needed to support the people with their specific needs. We saw that staff were up-to-date with their training and they told us they received the training they needed to do their jobs well.

Staff we spoke with understood the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and we saw that the service was following the principles of the MCA. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible. The service also had policies and systems in place to support this practice.

Care plans were person-centred, regularly reviewed and contained appropriate risk assessments to help keep people safe and give staff the information they needed to effectively manage any risks.

We saw that the senior management at the service had a variety of methods to assess and monitor the quality of the service. These included regular audits of the various locations where people lived and regular staff meetings to share learning points and gather feedback from staff.