About the service:

• The service is in a rural setting, near to Skegness in Lincolnshire.

• The service provides accommodation and personal care to people with learning disabilities and autism. Ashby Court is a complex of six small houses accommodating up to 11 people near the centre of Spilsby, Lincolnshire. The houses are purposely designed to promote independent living. At the time of our inspection there were 10 people living in the service.

People's experience of using this service:

• Audit processes were not comprehensively in place to ensure all risks had been managed and reduced. Questionnaires had been supplied to people for their views of the service though not to staff, external professionals and relatives.

• People were provided with a safe service though staff recruitment systems needed to be strengthened and any instances of suspected abuse reported to relevant agencies.

• People told us that people liked living at the service and that staff were friendly and caring towards them.

• People were assisted to have choice and control over their lives.

• People were protected against abuse, neglect and discrimination. Staff members were aware of ensuring people's safety and acting when necessary to prevent any harm.

• Staff members knew people well and people enjoyed spending time with them.

• People had a say in how the service was operated and managed.

• Activities were always available to people and they were assisted to have opportunities to work and to go to communal activities outside the service.

• People's care was personalised to their individual needs.

• The service met the characteristics for a rating of "Good" in key questions except well led, where it was rated Requires Improvement.

Rating at last inspection:

• The service was rated "good". Our last report was published for the inspection of 14 July 2016.

Why we inspected:

• This inspection was part of our scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received.

Follow up:

• We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people received safe, high quality care. Further inspections will be planned for future dates. For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

The inspection took place on 14 July 2016 and was unannounced.

Ashby Court is situated on the outskirts of Spilsby. It is registered to provide accommodation and personal care for 11 people with a learning disability or autism. It is a unit for people who can live semi independently. The home consists of six two bed terrace houses, one of which has been made into an office and a one bedroomed flat. There were nine people living at the home on the day we inspected.

There was a registered manager for the home. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the home. 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 home is run.

The registered manager and staff had understood their responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act. People’s abilities to make decisions had been assessed and appropriate support had been provided to ensure that their views were taken into account when making decisions. People were offered choices about their lives and care wherever possible.

There were enough staff available to meet people’s needs and staff had been supported with appropriate training and supervision to have the skills needed to care for people appropriately. Staff knew how to keep people safe and risks to people’s safety had been identified in their care plan. Care plans also fully recorded people’s needs and were regularly updated.

The people living at the home had come together to form a caring community and supported each other at the home and out in the community. The kind and caring attitude of the staff supported this as did the detailed knowledge staff had about people’s individual needs and communication skills. People were encouraged to input into the running of the home and development of the care they received. Staff respected people’s privacy and their personal relationships.

Where possible people were encouraged to be independent with their medicines and care was tailored to support them to be successful. In addition people were also supported to be independent with their cooking and housekeeping tasks.

People were supported to be involved with the community with both paid and voluntary employment and accessing leisure activities. People undertook a wide range of activities which they had identified they wanted to try and were supported by staff to undertake.

The provider had effective systems in place to monitor the quality of care people received and people were supported to comment about the quality of the care. The registered manager and provider had systems in place to ensure that they kept up to date with changes in good practice guidance and legislation and that staff were informed of any change needed.

There were nine people living at Ashby Court when we visited. We spoke with five of these people.

People we spoke to told us that they were happy living here. They enjoyed the activities that were organised and were keen to talk about the home.

We found that consent was gained and recorded for all people using the service where that was required. Appropriate measures were in place for people who were assessed to not have the capacity to consent.

Most service users were encouraged to budget, buy and prepare their own food. This was done for service users unable to do so.

Cleanliness was maintained mostly by service users, one person said "I like to clean and keep the place tidy." We saw the home was clean and tidy. We saw that people were involved in a range of activities and they were involved in the plans for these. One person said "We can't wait for our summer holiday."

We saw people were encouraged to live as independently as possible. People shared a group of small houses and were supported by a kind and caring team of support workers who clearly understood people’s individual needs. We observed one person walking to the local shop to buy a birthday card whilst another person told us how they had a part-time cleaning job at a local school.

One person told us, “I love it here, the staff are brilliant.” Another told us how they were encouraged to keep their rooms clean, “We have a list of things we need to clean and tidy everyday, and it really helps us.”

We saw people were given choices in how they wished to spend their day and were encouraged to join in a programme that offered both group and one-to-one activities each day.

One person required one to one care. We saw staff were attentive to the person’s complex needs.