This inspection took place on the 23 and 24 May 2016 and was announced. This was the first inspection since this service was registered in July 2014. Affinity Trust provides personal care and support to people with learning and physical disabilities who live independently in the community. 38 people used the service at the time of our inspection. People either lived on their own or with other people.

A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (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. The service has a manager in post who has submitted an application to the Care Quality Commission to become the registered manager. The previous registered manager left in October 2015.

People received a safe service, procedures were in place to reduce the risk of harm to people. Staff were trained and knew how to report and deal with issues regarding people’s safety. People received their medicines as prescribed and safe systems were in place to manage people’s medicines. Staff were recruited in a safe way which ensured they were of a good character to work with people who used this service.

Risk assessments and care plans had been developed with the involvement of people. Staff had the relevant information about how to minimise identified risks to ensure people were supported in a safe way. People had equipment in place when this was needed, so that staff could assist them safely.

The manager understood their responsibility to comply with the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). Staff knew about people’s individual capacity to make decisions and supported them to make their own decisions.

People received care from staff that were respectful and caring and ensured that people’s privacy and dignity was maintained. People were supported to maintain good health; we saw that staff alerted health care professionals if they had any concerns about their health. People had someone they could talk to if they were not happy about the service they received.

We had not received all of the information relating to incidents that the provider must notify us about. Arrangements were in place to assess and monitor the quality of the services, so that actions could be put in place to drive improvement.