Archived: Hastings Community Support Service

Updated 18 May 2018

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This service is a domiciliary care service. It providers personal care to people living in their own houses and flats. It provides a service to older adults and younger adults.

Not everyone using Hastings Community Support Service receives a regulated activity; the Care Quality Commission only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also into account any wider social care provided.

The care service has been developed and designed in line with the values that underpin the Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. These values include choice, promotion of independence and inclusion.

This inspection site visit took place on 6 February 2018 and was announced. Inspection site visit activity started on 29 January and ended on 23 February 2018.

We gave the agency 3 days' notice of the inspection visit because the manager is often out of the office. We needed to be sure that they would be in. We visited the office to see the manager and office staff, review care records and policies and procedures. Two people and one relative came to the office to speak with us and share their experiences of the service.

This was a routine comprehensive inspection carried out by two adult social care inspectors.

The inspection was informed by feedback from questionnaires completed by a number of people using the service prior to the inspection taking place. The Care Quality Commission sent surveys to: four people and their relatives, we received a response from three people and none from relatives; four staff and received three responses, and nine to community professionals and received three responses.

We met and spoke with the service co-ordinator, registered manager, team leader, the administrator and two care staff. We also received further written feedback from five care staff and six social care professionals. We used information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We also reviewed other information we held about the service. This included previous inspection reports, safeguarding alerts and statutory notifications. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law.

We reviewed information about people's care and how the service was managed. These included: two people's care files and medicine records; three staff files which included recruitment records of the last staff to be appointed; staff rotas; staff induction, training and supervision records; quality monitoring systems such as audits, spot checks and competency checks; complaints and compliments; incident and accident reporting; minutes of meetings and the most recent quality questionnaire returned.

Updated 18 May 2018

This announced comprehensive inspection took place on 6 February 2018.

Hastings Community Support Service was registered with the Care Quality Commission in June 2015 as a domiciliary care service. It provides personal care to a range of older adults and younger adults living in their own houses or flats in the community. These included older and younger adults who may have a learning disability or an autistic spectrum disorder. The provider was East Sussex County Council. There were six people using the service.

At our last inspection in October 2015 we rated the service as good in safe, effective, caring and well led with outstanding in responsive. This gave an overall rating of good. At this inspection we found the evidence continued to support the previous ratings of good in safe, effective and caring, with outstanding in responsive. However, well led had also now improved to outstanding. This made the service overall rating had now improved to outstanding.

There was registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the CQC 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.

Hastings Community Support Service was run with people at the heart of the service. It was outstanding in the way it responded to people’s changing needs and put people first at all times. There was a strong focus on encouraging people to become independent and this was the ethos of the organisation which was embedded in the service.

The service supported people to live as able a life as possible by trying out new hobbies, activities, interests and form community links. People and staff felt a sense of well-being when people had achieved this.

There was outstanding engagement with partner agencies and the service demonstrated seamless working, transparency, responsibility and accountability by working with them. People received care and support that was seamless as a result of this. People were supported and encouraged to achieve challenges and goals. Extreme close working between other partnership organisations enabled people to be supported in the wider community. People were helped and supported to achieve a more independent way of living that meant they relied less on help and support from the service.

People’s care and support was well planned, with comprehensive plans in place to guide staff. Care was personalised and individual to meet people’s differing needs. Risks were identified and as least restrictive as possible. All the necessary actions were taken to reduce risks while maintaining people’s independence.

People had a ‘communication passport’ which detailed their communication needs and any assistance that may be required. All documentation used within the service had been transcribed into easy read versions for people to access and understand.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff assisted them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service support this practice. Staff had an understanding of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and how it applied it their day to day roles. Any decisions made in people’s best interests were carried out and recorded with all the appropriate people involved.

Staff rotas were regularly changed to accommodate people’s daily lives and all staff willingly changed to support people as they considered it part of their job role.

People were protected by a safe and effective recruitment process. Staff were very motivated, passionate and very proud of the service they delivered. They enjoyed their jobs, felt valued and that their opinions mattered. They received training, support and supervision to do their jobs properly and felt included and listened to. Staff had a good understanding of what constituted abuse and what they needed to do to raise concerns. Medicines were given out safely.

There was a complaints policy and procedure in place which was in a suitable format for people to use. No complaints had been received in the last 12 months. The service had received 39 compliments.

The service was very well led and there was a very strong management structure in place which staff supported. Staff were encouraged to develop their skills, take on leadership roles and involved in developing the service.

There was a strong emphasis on continuous improvement. Systems were continually and robustly monitored. Any incidents that occurred were used as a learning tool to continuous improvement. There were a large number of processes in place to support this and provide improvement.

There was an open culture and the service worked closely with staff, relatives and professionals to get the best outcome for people using the service.