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Northeast Somerset Supported Living Service

C/o Connections Frome Road, Writhlington, Radstock, BA3 3LL (01225) 395377

Provided and run by:
Bath and North East Somerset Council

Important: The provider of this service changed. See old profile

Inspection summaries and ratings from previous provider

On this page

Background to this inspection

Updated 2 August 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 team was made up of 1 inspector, 1 assistant inspector and 1 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 a ‘supported living’ setting, so that they can live as independently as possible. 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. The service also provides a shared lives scheme, they recruit, train and support self-employed shared lives carers (SLC) who offer accommodation and support arrangements for vulnerable adults within their own family homes in the community.

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 was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 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.

What we did before the inspection

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.

During the inspection

We reviewed various documents in relation to the running of the service, including medicines records and recruitment files. We spoke with 11 staff including the registered manager, manager and care staff. We spoke with 3 people and 7 relatives. After our site visit, we continued to clarify information with the registered manager and received feedback from 3 professionals.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 2 August 2023

About the service

Frome Road is a supported living and shared lives service providing personal care to 18 people at the time of the inspection.

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

Right Support: People’s equality characteristics were respected. There were sufficient numbers of staff to meet people’s needs. 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 received person-centred care and support. When required, staff worked with healthcare professionals to achieve good outcomes for people. We received positive feedback from professionals we spoke with.

Right Culture: Staff spoke positively about the people they supported and the leadership of the service. There was a strong team identity in both functions of the service (the supported living and shared lives support). The registered manager confirmed there were gaps in audits and some documentation, they were working to improve this at the time of our inspection.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was good (published 6 July 2018)

Why we inspected

We inspected this service because of the age of the rating.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has remained good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Frome Road on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

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