Bury DCA is registered to provide personal care to people in their own homes. The service specialises in providing support to people with a learning disability. Support is provided both to individuals and to people living in small group settings. At the time of our inspection there were 20 people using the service in a total of nine houses.The service were last inspected on 08 January 2014 when they met all the regulations we inspected.
The service had a registered manager. 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.
We visited two houses where people were accommodated. We were unable to communicate with people who used the service due to their complex needs. We observed the interaction between staff and people who used the service. Staff understood the needs of the people they cared for because they had been caring for them for some time. Staff spoke to people and waited for a response and from their experience knew what the person wanted.
During our inspection we found an easy read booklet was in place in people’s care records entitled ‘No More Abuse’ for service users. This covered topics such as, what abuse is, the types of abuse, who abuses, people’s rights and who people could talk to. We did not see any evidence that this had been read by people who used the service.
Records showed that robust recruitment processes were followed by the service when employing new members of staff.
Training records we looked at showed that staff had received training in areas such as, health and safety, food safety, safeguarding adults, quality and diversity, autism, mental capacity act and DoLS, fire safety, first aid, enteral feeding, child protection, risk assessments, epilepsy, medicine administration, diabetes, person centred planning and nutrition and diet.
People in their own homes are not subjected to DoLS. However, staff were trained in the MCA and DoLS to ensure they were aware of the principles. The registered manager told us they would report any suspected restrictions on people to social services as a safeguarding concern.
People who used the service had health actions plans in place. These recorded the support the person needed to remain healthy or when accessing healthcare services.
We observed interactions between staff members and people who used the service. We saw staff treated people with dignity and respect and were caring in their approach.
We looked at a number of care plans for people who used the service. We saw these were person centred and had been created using photographs to help people understand and contribute to what was included in them. People’s regular routines were also documented.
We looked at the quality assurance systems in place within the service and found that these were sufficiently robust to identify areas for improvement.
Staff meetings were held on a regular basis. Minutes we looked at showed areas for discussion included, holidays, people who used the service, recruitment, training, news, the care certificate and safeguarding.