About the service: Applewood house and apartments accommodates thirteen people in one adapted building and is one of four services on the Bilsthorpe site owned and run by Lifeways. 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. People with learning disabilities and autism using the service can live as ordinary a life as any citizen.

People’s experience of using this service:

• Although there were quality monitoring processes in place at the service to improve the care for people. Further improvements in some aspects of the quality monitoring processes were required to sustain improvements made at the service during the last year.

• People felt safe at the service and the risks to their safety were well managed with clear strategies in place to reduce the risks for people.

• People were supported with appropriate numbers of staff. Their medicines, nutritional needs, and health needs were well managed, and they lived in a clean and well maintain environment.

• People were supported by staff who had appropriate training for their roles.

• Staff gained people’s consent before providing care.

• People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible: the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. They were supported to express their views and opinions about their care.

• People had formed positive relationships with staff who knew their needs and preferences.

• People’s dignity and privacy was maintained by a staff group who also encouraged people’s independence.

• There was a positive culture at the service and people and their relatives felt listened to, they could raise complaints or concerns and know they would be addressed by staff.

Rating at last inspection: This is the first inspection of this service under this provider.

Why we inspected: This inspection was a planned inspection undertaken to ensure the new provider for the service was meeting the regulations of the Health and Social Care Act and the Care Quality Commission Registration Regulations.