The service consists of an Outreach Team, Shared Lives Scheme and a Supported Living Scheme. The Outreach Team provide care and support to adults with learning disabilities in their own homes or with their families and enables them to maintain their own independence and lifestyle. The Shared Lives Scheme offers people with a learning disability the opportunity to live in a family home either on a long term or short-term basis. They also offer respite care for people with a learning disability or people living with a dementia.

The Supported Living Scheme provides 24 hour personal and domestic support to people who live in their own home and who have a learning disability. Support is provided on a long-term basis in tenanted housing. A total of 150 people were being supported throughout the service during our inspection.

The service had a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the 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 was rated as outstanding at the last inspection of October 2015. The service had been developed and designed in line with the principles that underpin the Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance; these values include choice, promotion of independence and inclusion. This policy asserts that people with learning disabilities and autism using a service should live as ordinary a life as any citizen. This policy can be found on the Care Quality Commission website.

Safeguarding policies, procedures and staff training helped protect people from abuse. People who used the service were given information and training to help protect themselves from harm. Safeguarding policies and procedures were developed in formats people could understand. The service liaised with other organisations to develop better practices to keep people safe.

The administration of medicines was safe. The service worked with other professionals to ensure people's medicines were administered in line with current guidance and took part in research to help improve the health and welfare of people who used the service.

People who used the service helped choose the staff who worked at the service and management conducted robust checks to ensure they were safe to work with vulnerable people. People told us they were looked after by a reliable staff team.

There were sufficient staff to meet people’s needs. Where possible people had the same staff team to care for them which ensured the continuity of care.

There were systems and checks to ensure the Cherwell Centre was a safe place for staff to work in and people who used the service to enjoy. We saw these checks covered all aspects of the service and were conducted in a researched way using up to date guidelines. People who used the service were trained and supported to help with health and safety assessments.

People had a health action plan which showed that their health care needs were met. There were risk assessments for the environment, health and social care needs to help keep them safe. The service liaised with other organisations and professionals to help promote good care for people who used the service.

The principles of the mental capacity act were followed to protect people’s rights. We saw that where required best interest meetings were held with associated professionals to ensure any decisions were made on a persons behalf and were the least restrictive.

People were supported to take a nutritious diet to help maintain their well-being. The service encouraged people to plan and prepare their own meals to follow a healthy lifestyle. We saw that the service took part in research to improve people's health.

Staff received an induction. Training and supervision was ongoing and staff received competency

This was an announced inspection which took place on the 20 October 2015. The service was last inspected on the 27 September 2013 when we found it to be meeting all the regulations we reviewed.

The service consists of an Outreach Team, Shared Lives Scheme and a Supported Living Scheme. The Outreach Team provide care and support to adults with learning disabilities in their own homes or with their families and enables them to maintain their own independence and lifestyle. The Shared Lives Scheme offers people with a learning disability the opportunity to live in a family home either on a long term or short term basis. They also offered respite care for people with a learning disability or dementia. The Supported Living Scheme provides 24 hour personal and domestic support to people who live in their own home and who have a learning disability. Support is provided on a long term basis in tenanted housing. A total of 133 people were being supported throughout the service on the day of our inspection.

The service had a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have a legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

During this inspection we found the service had nominated safeguarding champions for all issues relating to safeguarding. These people had received enhanced training in this area. It was their role to encourage staff to think about the safety of all the people who used the services.

We saw that risk assessments had been completed for health related issues or accessing community activities. Risk assessments had been completed for the environment such as fire safety, moving and handling and slips, trips or falls.

People who used the outreach service, where possible, were encouraged to self-medicate. For people who required support the registered manager told us only staff that had been trained in medicines administration were permitted to administer them.

Family forums had recently been set up where people who used the service and their family members were invited to attend. These forums demonstrated that people were welcome to engage and have an influence on things such as progress the service had made.

People living in their own homes were supported to plan their diet, shop and cook. Cherwell Centre provided workshops in relation to healthy eating and exercise which people who used the services were able to attend. People were also supported to go out as part of an activity for meals to places of their choice.

The service had a ‘welcome values approach’ in place. This was developed by the provider in order to improve services for people. As a result a book had been published; ‘Improving services for people one piece at a time’, which showed people they had supported and what changes needed to be made for the person in order to make improvements.

We found that service users had the opportunity to influence who delivered their care and/or support. This was achieved by training people who used the service about what to look for in potential staff members in order to meet their needs and wishes. Service users were involved in the interview process and had the opportunity to feedback and influence the decision making process.

The service had invited ‘Your Voice Advocacy’ to provide a weekly session where people who used the service could attend. This enabled people to gain independent advice and support if they required it as well as encouraging people to speak out about things that mattered to them.

People who used the service had end of life plans in place. These involved the person, their families and on occasions where necessary an advocate. We saw that people were supported to attend funeral directors where they could gain further information and support in choosing their own funeral arrangements.

The service had also developed a booklet on coping with grief and loss that they used when they were supporting people who experienced a loss. This was produced in an easy to read format and included visuals.

Some people who used the service had been given jobs at the Cherwell Centre through their employment scheme. These ranged from working in the kitchen, working on the farm or working in the gardening group. The service also held regular events such as fun days, barbeques and car boot sales where members of the community were invited in order to promote social inclusion.

All of the services had surveys they sent out to families. We were informed that a recurrent theme was coming out of the surveys in relation to supporting people to maximise their independence. Training was therefore being rolled out to senior managers and staff to encourage them to promote participation and engagement through effective and inclusive goal setting with people who used the service.

The service had signed up to several different commitments and schemes including the ‘social care commitment’, ‘The Big Idea’ and the ‘Driving Up Quality Code’. Activities and tasks as part of these included; the services’ promise to continually strive to deliver high quality care and invest in staff to ensure people had confidence in the care and support the service offered; direct staff involvement in suggesting and implementing service improvements and highlighting areas of good practice already in place and areas where they needed to improve.

There was a ‘staff awards’ system in place where staff members could nominate a colleague to receive an award in recognition of the work they undertook. This had resulted in positive experiences for people and outcomes included building new friendships and improved communication skills. This good work had been shared across Shared Lives England as a ‘good news story’ to evidence how carers could make a difference to the lives of people they support.

The service had a plan of priorities going forward until May 2016. The service was planning to improve the large garden area. The plans we looked at showed that consideration had been given to the needs of people with a learning disability and/or physical disability by the design of this.

The service worked in partnership with other services through the ‘Providers Forum’ which was held at the Cherwell Centre on a quarterly basis. The registered manager also informed us that senior managers had recently attended a two day event entitled ‘Working Together for Change’. Both the forum and the two day event identified that more needed to be done to prepare and support people into meaningful employment. From this the service had arranged pre-employment sessions for anyone wishing to work.

The service was working in partnership with Skills for Care and the DWP Job Centre Plus to encourage unemployed males to consider working in health and social care. The service hoped this would encourage more males to consider working in the sector so that they had more access to staff members they could match with people who used the service.