Hope Street supports people who have learning disabilities or mental health conditions living in supported living houses around Merseyside including Southport. The service is registered to deliver personal care and the offices are based in Hope Street, Liverpool. The service currently supports 150 plus people.

In ‘supported living’ settings, people are tenants and can live in their own home and be supported to be as independent as possible. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

For people who have a learning disability, 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 for people with learning disabilities. 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.

This was an announced inspection which took place over two days on 10 and 17 December 2018. The inspection was carried out by an adult social care inspector. Hope Street was newly registered with the Care Quality Commission [CQC] in November 2017 [Although existed as a support service prior to this]; as such this was a first inspection and quality rating.

We found the service to be providing good care for the people they supported. The overall culture of the service was very positive and the quality assurance process ensured consistent standards with a focus on ongoing service development.

We rated the service as Good.

The service had a registered manager in post. 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 observations we made and feedback we received evidenced people were getting good support. External professionals involved in peoples care also gave positive feedback which gave further evidence of a good service.

We found medicines were administered safely. Medication administration records [MARs] were completed in line with the services policies and good practice guidance. There was a positive focus on getting people to safely manage their own medication.

There were arrangements in place for checking the care environment to help ensure this was safe. These arrangements included regular checks and audits by house managers and ‘cluster’ managers which were supported by health and safety audits by other senior managers.

People using the service, relatives, professionals and staff told us they felt the culture of the organisation was fair and open and supported good care and support for people using the service.

People we spoke with said they felt safe with the staff from the agency and the support they received. We were told that if any issues arose they were addressed by the managers. The staff we spoke with clearly described how they recognised abuse and the action they would take to ensure actual or potential harm was reported. All the staff we spoke with were clear about the need to report through any concerns they had.

We reviewed past safeguarding investigations and the agency had followed procedures and liaised well with safeguarding authorities. Agreed protocols had been followed in terms of investigating and ensuring any lessons had been learnt and effective action had been taken. This rigour helped ensure people were kept safe and their rights upheld.

We saw that any risks to care provision had been assessed and there were fully developed plans in place to help ensure they were kept safe. Staff were arranged to support this depending on each person’s needs. There were s