We undertook an announced inspection on 23 November 2016.

We gave the provider 48 hours’ notice of our intention to undertake an inspection. This was because the organisation provides a domiciliary care service to people in their homes and or the family home; we needed to be sure that someone would be available at the office.

East Sussex Domiciliary Care Agency is owned by the Royal Mencap Society. The provider registered this service with us to provide personal care and support for people with learning disabilities. They provide care in supported living housing schemes. At the time of our inspection 33 people received support with personal care.

There was a registered manager for this service. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered providers and registered managers 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.

People we spoke with said they had support from regular staff who knew them well. Staff we spoke with recognised the different types of abuse. There were systems in place to guide staff in reporting any concerns. Staff were knowledgeable about how to manage people’s individual risks, and were able to respond to peoples’ needs. People were supported to receive their medicines by staff that were trained and knew about the risks associated with them.

Staff had up to date knowledge and training to support people. Staff always ensured people gave their consent to the support they received. The management team regularly reviewed how people were supported to make decisions. People were supported to eat and drink well. They explained they were supported to make their own decisions and be as independent as they could. People and their relatives told us staff would access health professionals as soon as they were needed. We saw there was effective communication with people, staff and health care professionals.

People and their relatives said staff and management team were caring and kind. They said people were treated with dignity and respect, and encouraged to be as independent as possible. People said they were involved in making choices about what they were supported with. Relatives told us they were involved as part of the team to support their family member. The management team were adaptable to changes in peoples’ needs and communicated changes to staff effectively.

People and their relatives knew how to raise complaints and the management team had arrangements in place to ensure people were listened to and appropriate action taken. Staff were involved in regular meetings, training and meetings to share their views and concerns about the quality of the service. People and staff said the management team were accessible and supportive to them.

People using the service were included in recruitment procedures for new staff. This encouraged staff to understand the importance of people using the service from the start of their employment.

The management team monitored the quality of the service in an inclusive way. The registered manager ensured there was a culture of openness and inclusion for people using the service and staff. The management team had systems in place to identify improvements and action them in a timely way.

During our inspection we spent time reviewing records and talking to staff to ensure that the actions for improvement identified at our last visit had been achieved. We spoke to one service manager and one other member of staff during the inspection. The area manager was contacted after the visit to request additional information.

We looked at training records and training certificates, which verified that training had taken place. We saw records that showed that staff were up to date with their training.

We looked at seven care plans to see what improvements had taken place to the recording of information. We found that daily record sheets had been completed fully in all the files we reviewed. There was evidence in four of the care plans that we looked at to show that information had been updated.

There were revised storage arrangements for office based files. During the visit we observed the secure destruction of out of date files containing personal information.

We spoke with three family members and two people that use the service. One relative told us that their daughter had been “encouraged to have choices and take control over her life”. Another relative told us the service worked hard to meet their son's needs when faced with his challenging behaviours.The families told us they were happy with the service provided by Mencap. One person who used the service told us, "I love living here".

We spoke with three members of staff and two managers. Staff told us that they had stayed in their job a long time because they loved the role they had in supporting people to be independent. One care worker told us, "I get a lot from encouraging people to achieve in all aspects of their life”. They told us they believed that people using the service could do whatever they wanted to and that the role of the care worker was to support these ambitions. Another care worker told us “I help people understand what they are going to do. I provide step by step guidance so they learn to do it for themselves”.

We found that there were processes in place to support independence of people using services. However, there were some shortfalls in keeping records up-to-date. For example, centrally held support plans and risk assessments were out of date. We found that although staff training was recorded and monitored some mandatory training was out of date. We spoke with the local authority who told us they had concerns about record keeping as well.

Overall the agency supported 28 people living within six services and one person who lived in private accommodation. We spoke with eight people within two services, three members of staff, two managers of services and the registered manager. In addition we spoke by telephone to four relatives of service users.

One person told us, “I love it here, I talk to (X) if I have any worries.” Another person said, “Staff take me where I want to go. I like to go to the fish bar in Hastings.” One person said, “I like spending time with my friends at the weekend.”

We observed that staff ensured that consent was obtained prior to providing care and support. We found that the domiciliary support plans in place were detailed and documented people’s needs and how they should be met.

There were safe systems in place for the management of medication.

There was a robust staff recruitment procedure in place.

There were detailed systems to ensure that the quality of care provided was monitored and reviewed on a regular basis.