Bolton Shared Lives

Updated 15 December 2023

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by an inspector and 2 Experts by Experience. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type

Bolton Shared Lives is a shared lives scheme. They recruit, train and support self-employed shared lives carers (SLC) who offer accommodation and support arrangements for vulnerable adults within their own family homes in the community.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations. At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was to ensure the registered manager was available to support the inspection, and to allow the provider time to contact people and shared lives carers to gain their consent for us to telephone them and complete home visits.

What we did before the inspection

Prior to the inspection we reviewed information and evidence we already held about the service, which had been collected via our ongoing monitoring of care services. This included notifications sent to us by the provider. Notifications are changes, events or incidents that the provider is legally obliged to send to us without delay. We also asked for feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

On the first day of inspection, we visited the office where we spoke with 4 staff members, which consisted of 3 coordinators and the registered manager. Following the office visit, we spoke with 7 people, 14 carers and 1 relative of a person using the shared lives service, to gather their views on the service and support provided. This was done via a mixture of telephone calls and visits to carer’s homes.

We reviewed a range of records and other documentation during home visits. This included 5 people’s care records, risk assessments, supplementary charts, medicines records and other documentation, such as policies and procedures which had been provided by the service.

After the inspection

Bolton Shared Lives store all documents and records electronically. As a result, we requested and reviewed the majority of information remotely. This included a further 6 people’s care plans, risk assessments and monitoring records and medicines records for 4 other people. We also reviewed incident and accident data, safeguarding records, staffing information, information relating to training and competence, audit and governance records and how the service involved people and carers in the care provided and the running of the service.

Updated 15 December 2023

About the service

Bolton Shared Lives is a shared lives scheme which provides people with long-term placements, short breaks and respite care within shared lives carer's own homes. At the time of our inspection there were 73 people using the service, 39 of whom were living in long term placements. Shared lives carers are supported by care coordinators, who are responsible for the setting up, management and review of all placements.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

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.

Right Support: People received care and support from carers who welcomed them into their home and family. Some people had lived with their carer for many years. Other people completed short breaks and/or respite with a consistent carer or carers, so had developed good, trusting relationships with them. Carers had a good understanding of people’s needs and how they wanted to be supported. People told us they were supported to achieve goals and aspirations. People’s independence was promoted, with people supported to access the community and activities in line with their assessed needs. 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: People using the service received person centred care which met their needs and promoted their dignity, privacy and human rights. Carers had the required skills and experience to provide care and were able to access additional support and advice from trained coordinators. The provider worked with other agencies and professionals to ensure and maintain people’s safety. Carers understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse.

Right Culture: The ethos, values and attitudes of both the service and shared lives carers ensured people were able to lead inclusive and empowered lives. There had been a number of recent changes to the management structure of both the service and provider, including the appointing of a new registered manager. However, people, carers and coordinators told us the changes had not impacted on how the service operated nor the level of support provided. Carers spoke positively of the support they received and the culture within the service. People and carers views were sought with feedback provided on how the service would make improvement based on information received.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for the service was good (published 14 October 2017).

Why we inspected

We undertook this focused inspection to assess whether the current rating of good was still accurate. This report only covers our findings in relation to the key questions safe and well-led, as these were the only key questions inspected. For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last comprehensive inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has remained 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 Bolton Shared Lives 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.