Dimensions Dorset Domiciliary Care Office

Updated 8 June 2023

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 Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by 1 inspector and an Expert by Experience. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type

This service provides care and support to people living in ‘supported living’ settings, their own homes and flats, so that they can live as independently as possible. In ‘supported living’ settings, 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.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there were 5 registered managers in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave a short period of notice of the inspection because some of the people using the service could not consent to a home visit from an inspector. This meant that we had to arrange for a ‘best interests’ decision about this.

Inspection activity started on 7 March 2023 and ended on 27 March 2023. We visited the location’s services on 8 March 2023, 10 March 2023 and 14 March 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we held about the service and contacted the local authority. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We visited 7 people and spoke with 9 relatives about their experience of the care provided. We received feedback from 33 members of staff and spoke with the registered managers and operations director. We received feedback from 5 health and social care professionals.

We reviewed a range of records. This included 6 people's care and support records and 4 people’s medicine administration records. We looked at 2 staff files in relation to recruitment and training. We also reviewed a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures, audits, accident and incident records, safeguarding records and reports.

Updated 8 June 2023

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.

About the service

Dimensions Dorset Domiciliary Care Office provides care and support to people with a learning disability and autistic people. It is registered to provide personal care. At the time of the inspection the service was delivering personal care to 25 people. Most people lived in their own accommodation, some people shared a house with other people using the service.

CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with 'personal care'; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.

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

Right Support:

Staff received person centred training and were confident in their abilities to promote positive risk taking which enabled people they supported, the freedom to pursue their own interests and to live their lives as they chose. A staff member informed us, “We work with the tools given and the spaces given to really make a difference in a person’s life. You can see the changes and see what people we support can accomplish.”

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 Care:

People were supported by staff who consistently strived to improve the quality of care people received. Staff understood people’s individual ways of communicating. This enabled people to be listened to and people were supported to actively engage in daily living tasks. For example, a staff member explained, “For one person clapping is encouragement and could be used to help motivate them to complete a task but for another, clapping means all finished. We must never clap at dinner, or they will stop eating and will not restart this activity until the next meal.”

Right Culture:

Without exception, staff fed back that people were placed at the heart of Dimensions Dorset Domiciliary Care Office. One staff member commented, “It's lovely to see [person’s name] has become part of the local community, they are recognised as a neighbour, friend, beautiful person, and not a person with a label learning disability.” Another informed us, “The values that Dimensions have [Respect, Courage, Ambition, Integrity, Partnership] are so aligned with the management team. I love everything about this company, very useful trainings and professional trainers, flexibility to work, the balance between work and home life.”

The staff team’s commitment to supporting people and focus on continued improvement helped reduce the risk of closed cultures developing within the service. Staff had received training on recognising the signs of a closed culture and were able to answer confidently what action they would take when raising and escalating concerns.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 15 December 2021 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.