Archived: Living Independently Staffordshire - East Staffs

Living Independently Staffordshire is a short term reablement service for people living in the East Staffordshire area. This service supports adults with health and social care needs to maximise or regain their independence. They also provide short term crisis intervention. There were 55 people using the service at the time of our inspection.

There was a registered manager at the service. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People were involved in setting their reablement goals and deciding on the care they wished to receive. They consented to their care and if they did not have capacity to make decisions then referrals were made to assess capacity. Staff monitored their progress and worked closely with other health professionals to encourage people to develop their independence. People had reviews and were supported to raise any concerns. When people required longer term support their transition to a new agency was planned and supported.

There were caring relationships between staff and people who used the service. Their privacy and dignity was respected and upheld and any information held about them was kept confidentially.

Staff were supported and trained to ensure that they had the skills to support people effectively. Some staff had champion roles so that they could develop their expertise and support their colleagues. There were safe recruitment procedures in place to ensure that staff were safe to work with people.

People felt safe with staff members who were trained in safeguarding and understood how to protect people from harm. Any concerns were reported in line with procedures and actions were taken to protect people. People knew how to make complaints if they needed to.

Risks to people’s health and wellbeing were assessed and staff were trained to recognise any changes to people’s needs. Plans were in place which described how to support people safely, including using equipment to assist them to move. Some people received assistance to take medicines and records were kept to ensure that this was done safely.

There were enough staff to meet people’s needs and because they worked in smaller geographical teams teams people received care from regular staff. People received the assistance they required to have enough to eat and drink.

Staff were well supported and felt involved in the development of the service. There were systems in place to drive quality improvement which included regular audits.

People using the service told us their privacy and dignity were respected. Comments included, 'They are thoughtful and always introduce themselves and ask for my preferred name.' Another person said, 'They always speak nicely and they listen, they do things at my pace.'

People told us they received the care and support that met their individual needs and were happy with the staff team that supported them. We saw care records were kept up to date and included information about people's needs and preferences. We found the provider was delivering a service which had respected people's views. Assessment and reviews conducted by the agency demonstrated they had consulted with people using the service and had recorded how they wished to be supported.

People using the service told us that they felt safe. When we spoke with the staff they were able to identify the signs of abuse and knew what to do if they had any concerns.

We looked at the recruitment procedures for staff and found that suitable systems were in place to protect people.

The provider had systems in place to check on the quality of the care people received. Complaints were responded to and the provider acted upon concerns to improve the service.