Disablement Association of Barking and Dagenham Also known as DABD (uk)

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

The service was providing effective care to people. People’s needs were assessed before they started using the service. However, a relative told us after the initial assessment the care plan was not reviewed in conjunction with them for 7 years. Where possible, people were able to consent to their care and their relatives helped to make decisions on their behalf where they lacked the capacity to do so themselves. The service supported people to live healthy lives and liaised with other health and social care services to meet people’s needs.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

People told us the provider met with them before the commencement of care to assess the person’s needs. However, they then said they were not involved with any review of the care provision until very recently, telling us, “They came to review the care plan 3 months ago, but that is the first time after 7 years.” Although the provider reviewed risk assessments, this was not always done in consultation with people or relatives.

The Managers of the service told us how they had developed a system to review care plans on a monthly basis. We heard how the provider talked to families about the care their family members received and when changes to support occured the plans were changed accordingly. The provider told us when talking to families about care plans they talked to each parent separately to ensure they get both perspectives of the support needs of the person.

We heard how the provider carries out an initial assessment before support was offered to ensure the right support was given. We heard how the organisation liaised with health professionals if necessary to support the person and their families to access care services.

The provider told us about initiatives they were involved in both locally and in other boroughs to promote healthier eating. We heard about work with other services which was aimed at providing valuable support to people and their families about continuing to eat well whilst having to manage financial constraints.

Care was delivered in line with evidenced based practice. For example, the provider had a number of policies and procedures which set out best practice and the legal framework for delivering safe and effective care, such as their safeguarding policy and policy on equality and diversity. The provider did not use physical restraint when working with people, in line with best practice. Instead, staff were knowledgeable about triggers that might cause people anxiety and they were able to de-escalate situations.

We heard how the provider worked with other agencies to ensure people received the support and services they need. We heard how the service liaised with such people who provide wheelchair repair services and benefits agencies for those people that required them.

The local authority told us they worked well with the service They carried out a monitoring visit of them in July 2024 and found areas of good practice and no concerns.

Although no one using the servicer at the time of inspection required end of life care, the provider had an end of life care policy This stressed the importance of working together with other services to meet people’s needs. Likewise, the care planning policy made clear that people should be involved in the planning and delivery of their care. Staff had supervision with senior staff to help with the smooth running of the service and set clear goals and expectations.

The provider told us about health initiatives with GP services they were involved in. These were ensuring people had regular medical checks and providing parents with information to gain skills around maintaining good health.

Staff undertook training related to supporting people live healthy lives.

The Manager told us how their close working relationships with families is central to monitoring people’s wellbeing and ensuring good outcomes.

As part of the monitoring process, the local authority had carried out monitoring visits. The most recent was in July 2024. At that visit the local authority assessed the service as being Good. They reported that staff could compete for various awards, such as staff member of the year and best newcomer. The provider obtained the results of its most recent staff survey in October 2024. The results of the survey were generally very positive. The survey gave the provider the opportunity to monitor how staff were feeling about their work and also to identify where there were areas for improvement.

The local authority reported that care plans included information about the best way to gain consent from people. The provider had a policy about consent which said people should be able to consent to their care and if they lacked capacity to do so a mental capacity assessment should be carried out. Staff had undertaken training about mental capacity assessment. Relatives told us that where people had the capacity to do so, they were able to consent to their care.

We heard from staff who described how the people they supported made day to day decisions about their care. They told us how people were encouraged to make decisions about the things they wanted. The staff told us families were responsible for bigger decisions such as health related matters and that they will share the outcome of this with the provider when it is necessary for them to do this.

We saw that decisions were recorded within each person’s care plan. Staff supported people with simple tasks such as deciding what leisure activities they wanted to do within the home and what they wanted to eat for lunch.