Ealing based, Support for Living Domiciliary Care Agency, has been rated Outstanding overall by the Care Quality Commission.
It was rated Outstanding for being well-led and effective. It was rated Good for being safe, caring and responsive, following the inspection in December 2017.
Support for Living Domiciliary Care Agency provides care and support to people living in 'supported living' settings, so that they can live in their own home as independently as possible.
The provider, Certitude, is a national provider of services for people with a learning disability, physical disability or with mental health needs.
Certitude took great care when people are admitted to the service by tailoring the admission process so each person settled comfortably. One relative described the work undertaken by staff as, "truly amazing" in helping their family member settle into the new setting.
Staff received exceptional training and support to fulfil their roles, particularly in supporting people with challenging behaviour. Certitude has a specialist team to support staff to work with specific people to help them understand the person's behaviour and to use innovative non-restraint approaches to support people.
Inspectors found that staff had an exceptional understanding of people’s needs and used their skills and experiences to support people in their daily lives. A care worker used ‘social stories’ to help a person overcome their fear of attending a hospital appointment.
Social stories are stories about an issue or matter that are written and developed in a specific way for people who have autism to develop a greater social understanding about a situation. To develop the social story one staff member videoed the hospital building, the clinic and staff the person would meet when they visited, so they knew what to expect.
Certitude had initiated a project called ‘Food for Thought’ aimed at improving the emotional wellbeing and mental health of people with a learning disability. The group met weekly and was led by a counsellor. One of the aims was for people to develop their own support network through the group.
Certitude went above and beyond to include people and their relatives in the way it provided services. It organised regular ‘Listening events’ that were arranged as a lunch or an evening meal for senior management to meet and speak with people and relatives to hear their views on the services provided.
The leadership team were very involved in assessing the quality of care being provided in their services to identify areas for improvement by visiting individual services. They used these opportunities to hear first-hand about the experiences of people by speaking with them face to face to help them understand the quality of the services people received.
The provider helped to raise the public awareness and people’s understanding of issues related to learning disability. It holds community events such as ‘The Big Event 2016’ where families were invited to attend a day of entertainment, talks and workshops. Representatives from different organisations with a focus on learning disability and mental health gave talks and held workshops. Certitude recorded that 470 people attended the event.
Debbie Ivanova, CQC’s Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care, said:
“Ealing’s Support for Living Domiciliary Care Agency has shown it has a management team and staff in place that work to high standards - and together have achieved an Outstanding overall rating for the agency providing excellent care”.
Read the inspection report in full.
Ends
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Ealing’s Support for Living Domiciliary Care Agency has shown it has a management team and staff in place that work to high standards
Debbie Ivanova, Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care