Aston House is registered to provide accommodation and personal care for up to five people who are living with autism. There were five people living at the home at the time of this inspection.

At the last inspection in July 2015, the service was rated Good. At this inspection we found that the service remained Good.

There was a registered manager who had managed the home since October 2010. 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.

People continued to receive safe care. Staff were appropriately recruited and there were enough staff to provide care and support to meet people’s needs. People were consistently protected from the risk of harm and received their prescribed medicines safely.

People developed positive relationships with the staff who were caring and treated people with respect, kindness and courtesy. People had detailed personalised plans of care in place to enable staff to provide consistent care and support in line with people’s personal preferences.

People were supported to improve their communication and expand their social circle. People were encouraged and supported to participate in activities that they were interested in.

People received care from staff that had the support, supervision, training and on-going professional development that they required to carry out their roles. People were supported to maintain good health and nutrition.

Staff and ensured they received people’s consent before providing care. The registered manager and staff understood their roles in providing safe care whilst people were under a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding authorisation.

Staff knew people very well and strived to understand the reasons for people’s displeasure and find ways to rectify these. The provider had implemented systems to manage any complaints made by professionals and relatives.

The provider and registered manager had quality monitoring processes in place to identify areas that required improvement and took action where issues had been identified.

People using the service had complex needs which meant they were not able to tell us their experiences. We used a number of different methods to help us understand the experiences of people using the service. We looked at people’s care records which detailed their well-being. We talked with staff about how they supported and cared for people in a way that respected their choices and preferences and we observed how people related to staff.

Staff had a good relationship with people living in the home and people were calm and relaxed. Discussion with the three members of support staff who were working in the home when we visited showed that they had a good knowledge of people's care needs.

Care plans and assessments contained all the relevant information for staff to meet people's individual care needs. This included detailed information about people’s preferences, routines and how they communicated their feelings and needs.

We looked at training records which showed that staff received safeguarding training as part of a planned training programme. We spoke with three members of staff about safeguarding. They were able to tell us about their responsibilities to safeguard people from harm including how to report any concerns they had within the organisation and externally if required.

We saw that new staff had induction programme followed by on on-going training to ensure that they had the skills and knowledge to support and care people living in the home.

We used a number of different methods to help us understand the experiences of people using the service, because the people using the service had complex needs which meant they were not able to tell us their experiences. We gathered evidence of people’s experiences of the service by reviewing comments made on satisfaction surveys completed by people who used the service and by their relatives. The manager of the service made the relatives of people living in the home aware of the inspection visit and how relatives could contact us if the wished to give any feedback.

We saw that care records contained all the relevant information for staff to meet people's individual care needs. Staff explained that they use visual aids to help communicate with people living in the home and to assist people in making choices. We saw that staff had received training to enable them to support and care for the people appropriately.

We carried out this inspection visit because we had not visited this service since 03 December 2009.

Due to the individual needs of the people living at Aston House we were not able to spend time talking with them about their experiences of the care and support they receive. We saw staff talking to people in a caring and sensitive manner and we saw that people looked well presented.

Aston House is registered to provide accommodation and personal care for up to five people who are living with autism. There were five people living at the home at the time of this inspection.

At the last inspection in July 2015, the service was rated Good. At this inspection we found that the service remained Good.

There was a registered manager who had managed the home since October 2010. 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.

People continued to receive safe care. Staff were appropriately recruited and there were enough staff to provide care and support to meet people’s needs. People were consistently protected from the risk of harm and received their prescribed medicines safely.

People developed positive relationships with the staff who were caring and treated people with respect, kindness and courtesy. People had detailed personalised plans of care in place to enable staff to provide consistent care and support in line with people’s personal preferences.

People were supported to improve their communication and expand their social circle. People were encouraged and supported to participate in activities that they were interested in.

People received care from staff that had the support, supervision, training and on-going professional development that they required to carry out their roles. People were supported to maintain good health and nutrition.

Staff and ensured they received people’s consent before providing care. The registered manager and staff understood their roles in providing safe care whilst people were under a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding authorisation.

Staff knew people very well and strived to understand the reasons for people’s displeasure and find ways to rectify these. The provider had implemented systems to manage any complaints made by professionals and relatives.

The provider and registered manager had quality monitoring processes in place to identify areas that required improvement and took action where issues had been identified.