The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Dalesview Partnership Supported Living in Chorley, Lancashire, as outstanding following an inspection in February.
The service, run by Dalesview Partnership Limited, provides a supported living service to older and younger people with learning disabilities, some of whom are also autistic.
The inspection was carried out as part of CQC’s regular checks on the safety and quality of the service.
Following this inspection, CQC has upgraded the overall rating of the service from good to outstanding as well as for how effective, caring, and well-led it is. How safe and responsive the service is, has been again rated as good.
Linda Hirst, CQC deputy director of operations in the north, said:
“When we inspected this service, we found an organisation that worked to actively improve people’s quality of life and strived to deliver care in line with good practice. It was clear that impressive leadership and incredibly caring staff are behind their new outstanding rating.
“We spoke to people using the service and their relatives, who were all very positive about the care and support provided by the staff. Some of the people we sought feedback from could not easily respond verbally and indicated their positive responses through gestures and facial expressions. People benefitted from the reliable, flexible, and joined-up service provided.
“Staff were kind and knowledgeable and interacted positively with people to provide person-centred care. They supported people safely and effectively with their mental wellbeing and their physical health, including their medicines. This is incredibly important as autistic people and people with learning disabilities often have worse physical health outcomes than people who don’t.
“The service proactively worked to ensure people could have a say in making decisions about their own support. Staff also involved relatives in assessments, reviews, and decisions about people’s care.
“Dalesview ensured people enjoyed a varied and active lifestyle, and had exceptional access to meaningful activities and the local community, to support their independence, health and wellbeing. Staff even created personalised timetables and offered additional support to reduce any barriers people had to attending activities or participating in the local community.
“Staff produced guides for every person using the service which thoroughly detailed their communication needs. This, along with the training staff received meant they were able to respond quickly to minimise people’s distress.
“Staff at Dalesview Partnership Supported Living should be very proud of the findings in this report. We saw some very positive examples of care and support that was reflected in the experiences of people we spoke to.”
Inspectors found:
- The service supported people to overcome barriers to care and support, as well as plan for the future and provided excellent support with transitions.
- Reasonable adjustments were made to ensure people’s homes were accessible and had the necessary equipment to keep their homes safe and reduce the likelihood of accidents from happening.
- When accidents and incidents did happen, they were learnt from to try and prevent them from happening again.
- Staff managed risks well and leaders had implemented effective safeguarding processes to keep people safe from the risk of abuse or neglect.
- People’s capacity was assessed and staff sought consent through their personalised communication guides.
- The service had positive working relationships with local community organisations.
- The service proactively sought feedback from people and relatives and enabled people to share feedback and ideas, or raise complaints about their care, treatment and support.
- The service had several initiatives to promote staff wellbeing and staff were supported to develop their skills around innovation, and improvements were continuously made to the safety and quality of care.