Sycamore Court

Updated 23 November 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 team consisted of 1 inspector.

Service and service type

This service provides care and support to people living in a supported living’ setting, so that they can live as independently as possible. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

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

The inspection was announced. We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

What we did before the inspection

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 reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England.

We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 6 people who used the service and 3 relatives for their experience of the care their family member received. We spent time in the company of people and observed staff interactions with people to help us understand people’s experience of the service they received. We spoke with registered manager, deputy manager, project worker and 3 support workers. We reviewed a range of records. This included 3 people's care records and medicine records, and 3 staff files in relation to recruitment. We looked at a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including audits and checks, staff training, meeting records, staff deployment and policies.

Updated 23 November 2023

About the service

Sycamore Court provides care to people living in their own homes and or a supported living setting. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of our inspection, 7 people were receiving the regulated activity of personal care. The service provides support to adults with autism, learning disabilities and mental health needs.

People’s experience of the service and what we found:

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people. We considered this guidance as there were people using the service who have a learning disability and or who are autistic.

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 Support: People’s individual care and support needs and any known risks had been assessed and planned for. Guidance for staff of how to mitigate risks were overall detailed and continually monitored and updated. Staff understood people’s individual care needs and any associated risks.

People were supported to manage their prescribed medicines and to have their medicines reviewed by the GP. People were supported to manage their tenancy, monitor health and safety and report any repairs to the landlord.

People were protected from the risk of abuse and avoidable harm. Accidents and incidents were reviewed, and actions were taken to reduce reoccurrence and any learning opportunities were discussed with the staff team.

There were sufficient staff employed to meet people’s individual care and support needs. Staff had received an induction and ongoing training and support. Staff had been safely recruited.

Right Care: People were positive about the care and support they received. They were fully involved in discussions and decisions about the care and support they received. People spoke highly of the care staff. Observations of staff engagement with people was kind, caring and respectful.

Right Culture: There was a positive staff culture. Staff were happy in their work and felt well supported. The provider had robust systems and processes to monitor quality and safety. Oversight and leadership of the service were good.

People were supported to lead active and fulfilling lives. People accessed their local community regularly, attended college courses, and recreational and leisure activities.

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 this service was Good (published 26 January 2019).

At this inspection we found the service remains Good.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of Safe and Well-led only. For those key question not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Sycamore Court 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.