Archived: Derbyshire Individual Support Service

Derbyshire Individual Support Service provides personal care for people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection, there were twelve people receiving personal care from the service, including seven older adults. People were living with a range of health conditions and disabilities, such as physical or learning disabilities. There is a named person for the registered provider who is also the manager for the service. This personal has a legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

At our last inspection in April 2014, the service was meeting the requirements of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and related care standards.

At this inspection people received care that was safely planned and delivered by staff who were safely recruited and deployed. People and staff were confident, knew how and supported to report any safety concerns they may relating to people’s care, if they needed to. This helped to protect people from the risk of harm or abuse.

Known risks to people’s safety associated with their health condition, medicines or environment were assessed before they received care. Care plans detailed actions that staff needed to follow to help mitigate risks from this, which staff understood and followed. The provider’s emergency planning, communication and reporting procedures helped to ensure people’s safety in care.

Staff understood and followed the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) to obtain people’s consent or appropriate authorisation for their care. People felt that staff supported them in a way that helped to inform, respect and follow their decisions about their care. This showed staff ensured and protected people’s rights and best interests.

People received care from staff who were trained and supported to perform their roles and responsibilities for people’s care. Staff liaised with external health professionals and followed their instructions for people’s care when required. Staff understood and followed people’s personal care plans relating to their health conditions, to help people maintain and improve their health.

People were happy with their care and appropriately informed and involved in agreeing this. Staff were kind, caring and knew what was important to people for their care. Staff understood and followed the provider's stated principles of care, which helped to ensure people’s rights, choices, independence and social inclusion.

People’s care was individualised, timely and responsive to their assessed care needs, daily living choices and lifestyle preferences. Staff knew how communicate and engage with people in a way that was meaningful to them.

People and relatives were informed and supported to make a complaint about care provided. The provider regularly sought people’s views about their care and staff’s views in relation to working for the service. Findings from this were checked to inform any care or service improvements that may be needed. People and relatives were overall satisfied with their care and staff were happy working at the service. All confirmed they would recommend the service to family and friends.

People, relatives and staff were confident about the management of the service. There were clear and suitable arrangements for the management, day to day running of the service and for related record keeping. The provider had met their legal obligations to tell us about important events when they occurred at the service Staff were appropriately informed and supported to carry out their role and responsibilities for people’s care, which they understood and followed.

The provider carried out regular checks of the quality and safety of people’s care. This was done in a way that demonstrated they continuously sought to improve the service and people’s related care experience.

We spoke with three members of staff employed at different grades.

This is a summary of what we found.

Is the service safe?

We saw that the care being provided was safe. There were enough staff on duty to meet the needs of the people they were supporting. A member of the management team was on duty on each shift and available on call in case of emergencies.

Staff personnel records contained the information required by the Health and Social Care Act 2008. This meant the provider could demonstrate that the staff employed were suitable and had the skills and experience needed to support the people who used the service.

Is the service caring?

People told us that they were supported by kind and attentive staff. All spoke positively about their care and the staff who supported them. They told us they were able to do things at their own pace and were not rushed. One person said, 'They help me to do as much as I can for myself".

Is the service effective?

The people we spoke with told us that they were happy with the support they received and their needs had been met. It was clear from the care plans we saw and from speaking with staff that they had a good understanding of the care and support needs of the people who used the service. We saw from the training records we viewed that staff had received training to enable them to meet the needs of the people they were supporting.

Is the service responsive?

People's needs had been assessed before they began using the service. The records we saw confirmed that people's preferences, interests, aspirations and diverse needs had been recorded. Care and support had been provided in accordance with people's wishes. People had been supported to take part in activities that were important to them. One person told us, ''It's made a major difference to my life. Without them I wouldn't have been able to do the things I've done''.

Is the service well-led?

We found from speaking with staff that they had a good understanding of the service's values. They told us about their roles and responsibilities and they were clear about these. We saw that quality assurance processes were in place. These made sure that the provider monitored the care provided and made improvements where necessary. For example, satisfaction surveys had been completed by people using the service and their families. The results had been analysed and showed that people were happy with their care.

People spoke well of the service and one person said, 'The service is first class, it is brilliant. They take time to build a relationship with you and gain your confidence.'

We found people using the service were safe because the staff were given clear instructions, support, training and guidance. People told us they were treated with care and compassion and the staff responded well to their needs.

We saw the staff were offered the training they needed to support people using the service in the most appropriate way.

The provider had systems in place to check on the quality of the care people received. The service was well led because the manager supported the staff team, had quality monitoring systems in place and managed risks effectively.

We reviewed the care plans of four people receiving a service and found that, in general, they were regularly reviewed and included people's preferences for their care. We observed that a great deal of effort had been put into creating person centred plans for people receiving a service, especially for those people whose needs were more complex.

We found that appropriate checks were undertaken before staff began work and of the four staff members we spoke with, all had completed an application form and had an interview. People receiving a service were encouraged to take part in the recruitment process and sat on interview panels.