About the service: Faycroft is a residential care home providing personal and nursing care to seven people with a learning disability at the time of the inspection.

Registering the Right Support has values which include choice, promotion of independence and inclusion. This is to ensure people with learning disabilities and autism using the service can live as ordinary a life as any citizen. The home was meeting the principles of this policy.

People’s experience of using this service:

People received safe and effective care. Staff were skilled to meet people’s needs and preferences. People were supported to manage risk and were protected from the risk of abuse.

People were supported by kind and caring staff who knew them well and understood their preferences. People were supported to maintain their privacy and their dignity was respected. People were encouraged to make decisions and choices for themselves and live an independent life.

People could follow their interests and were involved in planning their care and support.

People were asked for their views about the care they received and they were listened to. There were systems in place to monitor the quality of care and these were effective in identifying improvements.

The interim manager encouraged a positive culture and understood their responsibilities. Learning and partnership were encouraged and promoted to improve people’s quality of life.

The service met the characteristics of Good in all areas; more information is available in the full report below.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection: At the last inspection the service was rated Good Improvement (report published 1 September 2016).

Why we inspected: This was a scheduled inspection based on previous rating.

Our inspection took place on 6 July 2016 and was unannounced. Faycroft provides accommodation and personal care for up to 6 people with a learning disability. At the time of our inspection, there were 6 people using the service.

There was a registered manager in post at the time of our inspection. 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 legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The registered manager received support from a staff team, which included a deputy manager, team leaders and support workers.

People were kept safe by the service. Staff protected people from the risk of harm and understood how to report concerns. Staff understood how to identify and manage risks to help keep people safe. Employment of staff only took place following pre-employment checks and there was enough staff to keep people safe. People received their medicines as prescribed and staff administered them safely.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is required by law to monitor the operation of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) and report on what we find. The service had systems in place to assess people’s mental capacity. Where required the registered manger made applications to the authorising agencies for a DoLS. Staff understood the principles of the MCA and DoLS and could apply these when delivering care and support.

People had support from skilled and trained staff who understood how to meet their needs and provide effective support. People had support to maintain a healthy diet and could access food and drinks as and when they wanted. Mealtimes were relaxed and people had plenty of choice. People had individual health action plans in place and access to health care professionals when they needed them, which helped people maintain their health and wellbeing.

People had positive relationships with others living at the home and members of staff. Staff showed people respect and were caring whilst delivering their care and support. Staff involved people in planning their care and encouraged people to be independent. People had their dignity and privacy respected by the staff who provided their care and support.

People’s care and support was personalised and responded to their needs. Staff gave consistent care to meet people’s needs and preferences, Staff understood care needs through the detailed care records, which people had been involved in designing and which got reviewed regularly. People could access a range of different things to do and could choose on a daily basis how to spend their time.

People gave feedback about the service on a daily basis through informal discussions with staff and managers they also provided feedback at regular house meetings. People and their relatives understood how to make a complaint and felt the registered manager would address their complaints.

People shaped the service through their suggestions; the registered manager promoted an open culture and encouraged people to share their ideas about improving the service. The registered manager understood their role and responsibilities. The registered manager monitored quality and improvements to the service were undertaken as a result. Staff had support from the registered manager to understand their roles and ensure they had the skills to support people.

Faycroft provides accommodation and support for people with learning disabilities. Although we met most people living in the home, only one was able to express their views about their experience in any detail. They were very happy at the home. Everyone else we met appeared comfortable with the staff and their surroundings.

People were involved in making decisions about their lives as far as they were able. We saw people being treated with dignity and respect by the staff.

We found that care plans were very person centred and contained lots of information about people’s choices, preferences and their likes and dislikes.

People who used the service were protected from the risk of abuse, because the provider had taken reasonable steps to identify the possibility of abuse and prevent it from happening.

We found that medicines were safely stored, handled and administered. All the medicine records we checked were accurate.

We found that the provider regularly monitored the quality and performance of the service it provided.

We spoke with three people who lived at the home. They were happy there, felt safe and had enough to do. Two people were unable to tell us their views. We spoke with one relative and briefly observed staff interaction. We looked at two people’s care records and spoke with two health professionals. We looked at records about staff and the running of the home, spoke with five staff and the manager.

People's dignity and independence was respected and promoted. People took part in their care and daily living tasks, had stimulation and attended worship if they wished to.

People who used the service, their representatives and other professionals were involved in planning care and treatment and made best interest decisions. They worked together to monitor and adjust care and treatment as necessary, which had improved people’s health and wellbeing.

Staff had training from the health specialists to understand people's specific conditions. Health professionals told us the staff team now had a consistent approach and managed complex behaviours well.

The provider carried out checks to make sure that staff were fit for their roles before they started work. People got along with the staff, and staff felt well supported by management. There were effective systems in place to act upon and learn from safeguarding concerns, incidents and complaints.

We met with all three people currently living at Faycroft during our visit. Two people chose to speak with us and they said that they liked their home and were very happy living there.

People told us that they were supported to live independent lives. People went out when they chose, led active lives and helped out with cleaning and cooking.

People were encouraged to manage their own money and budget. The home had a number of family pets that people were supported to care for and look after.

People said that they enjoyed the meals that they had at Faycroft and the menu was discussed at weekly meetings. A pictorial guide was available to support decision making. We were told that despite having a weekly menu people often preferred to look through the cupboards and, “choose what they fancied on that particular day”.

Everyone at the home was supported with their medication and the home had recently introduced a number of robust safeguards to ensure that people take their tablets in the correct doses and at the correct time. Detailed records and protocols supported this process.

All care records were seen to be very well organised and reviewed regularly.

People were supported by a knowledgeable and well trained staff team who knew people’s care and support needs well. People told us that they liked the staff who supported them.

Detailed and thorough assessments and effective joint working and planning ensured that the home could admit new people and be confident that they could meet their needs.

People were involved in developing their care and support plans and these were seen to be very detailed. They described people’s likes and dislikes, needs and preferences. These plans were important because they were used to ensure that people had all of their needs met safely but also they minimised behaviours that caused people upset and distress. The home worked with outside health and social care professionals to ensure risk assessments and support plans were effective and kept people safe. A health care professional commented on the quality of care and support plans.

We were also told that the manager and the staff team at Faycroft worked well with health and social care professionals who told us that they considered that the home offered a good service.