Norwich Road provides care and support to people living in a supported living setting, so that they can live in their own home as independently as possible. People’s care and housing is provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

This announced inspection that was started on 29 January 2018, with a second visit on 31 January 2018. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection site visit because some of the people using it could not consent to a home visit from an inspector, which meant that we had to enable the service time to arrange for a ‘best interests’ decision about us visiting people.

On the day of our inspection, there were six people who had a learning disability using this service. They were all living within the same housing complex, in separate flats within this location based in Ipswich.

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 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 outstandingly well led; the registered manager was very organised and knowledgeable about the people being supported and was very well supported by the providers of the service. People, their relatives and the staff told us that the registered manager was open, supportive and had good management skills. Staff told us that they recognised the hard work the registered manager had put into the service to improve the service offered to people. There were robust systems in place to monitor the quality of service the providers offered people.

We saw outstanding examples of positive and caring interaction between the staff and people supported by the service, people were treated with kindness and respect. People were able to express their views and staff listened to what they said, respected their views and took action to ensure their decisions were acted on. Staff protected people’s privacy and dignity.

People and their relatives told us that they were confident they were safe in this outstanding service. People were protected from bullying, harassment, avoidable harm and abuse by staff that were trained to recognise abusive situations and knew how to report any incidents they witnessed or suspected. Staff clearly understood their responsibilities to raise concerns and there were arrangements in place for reviewing and investigating incidents when things went wrong. Staff told us they would not hesitate to report any suspicions they had about people being abused.

Staff had been safely recruited which helped protect people from harm.

Risks were assessed and steps had been put in place to safeguard people from harm without restricting their independence unnecessarily. Risks to individual people had been identified and action had been taken to protect them from harm.

Staffing levels were high and sufficient to keep people safe and people were supported to manage their medicines in a way that ensured that they received them safely and at the right time. There were also appropriate infection control practices in place to help protect the people the service supported and the staff from the risks involved around contagious diseases.

People’s needs assessments were detailed and they received effective care in line with current legislation from staff who had the knowledge, qualifications, skills and experience they needed to carry out their roles.

The management and staff were a strong team and worked well together to ensure that people received consistent person centred care when they used or were supported by different services. People were invariably asked for their consent by staff before they supported them in l