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
Blossom HCG is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to 15 people living within 6 supported living environments at the time of the inspection.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Right Support:
Staff communicated with people in their individual and preferred methods. This meant people could be fully involved in decisions about their support.
Staff supported people to be as independent as they could if this was their choice.
People had support to pursue their interests and achieve their identified goals.
People received safe and effective support with their medicines.
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:
Staff demonstrated a good knowledge of how to support people effectively. The management team were implementing systems to manage staffing matters including how knowledge and competency was being checked.
People’s support plans varied in the level of detail and information provided for staff to follow. The registered manager was able to demonstrate care plans were in the process of being reviewed to help ensure consistency across the service.
Management and staff promoted people’s equality and diversity and knew them well as individuals. People received kind and compassionate care which fully promoted their privacy and dignity.
Staff prompted people to try new experiences which may enhance their well-being and enjoyment of life.
Right Culture:
People and those important to them were involved in planning their support.
People received consistent care and support from a team who knew them well and understood their individual needs. Management and staff strove to achieve good quality care and good outcomes for people.
People received good quality care and support and were supported to lead inclusive and empowered lives.
Feedback from people and relatives about the service was positive.
The management and team were passionate about continually improving the service and supporting people to achieve their goals and aspirations.
The provider’s new quality monitoring systems were not yet fully embedded in daily practice having been delayed due to significant staff shortages. A successful recruitment campaign had reduced the pressure on the staff and a tiered management structure was now in place. We have made a recommendation for the provider to concentrate on embedding their new quality assurance and governance systems into day to day practice across the service.
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 requires improvement (published 10 July 2021) and there were breaches of regulation. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve.
At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.
Why we inspected
This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this service on 04 June 2021. Breaches of legal requirements were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve safe care and treatment and overall governance of the service.
We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe and Well-led which contain those requirements.
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 changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings at this inspection.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Blossom HCG 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.