Aurora Orchard Manor Transition Service is registered to provide accommodation and personal care for up to 31 young adults with profound physical and learning disabilities and complex needs. The service is provided from a home, which consists of three linked buildings and includes a number of large therapy rooms as well as a hydrotherapy pool and trampoline. The home has wide corridors throughout and plenty of storage space for any equipment that the young people need. Each young person has their own single bedroom in one of three flats. The flats each have a large communal sitting/dining area and kitchen, and bathrooms are shared between two bedrooms. On the day we visited, one of the flats was being completely refurbished so was not in use.

The home has been operating for a number of years, but this was the first inspection since Aurora Care and Education Opco Limited took over as the provider in May 2016.

The inspection visit to this home took place on 27 June 2017 and was unannounced. There were 18 young people living at the home on this date. There was a registered manager in place. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) 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 young people who lived at the home showed us and told us that they were very comfortable, truly happy and felt completely safe at Aurora Orchard Manor and in the company of the staff. Several of their relatives were very keen to be involved in the inspection to tell us how exceedingly satisfied they were with the service provided to their young family members. They were fully confident that their family members were safe, well cared for and treated extremely well by the staff team.

Young people’s relatives and healthcare professionals were effusive in their praise of the staff. Staff were exceptionally kind, caring and compassionate. They were fully aware of the importance of getting to know each young person as well as possible in order to support them to lead an amazingly full, interesting and fun-filled life. Staff treated all the young people with the utmost respect and supported them in a way that completely preserved their privacy and dignity.

The CQC monitors the operation of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS), which apply to care services. If a young person lacked the mental capacity to make certain decisions, the staff were clear about their responsibilities in relation to the Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. Staff always asked for the young person’s consent to care and the young people were encouraged to make as many choices as possible in their everyday lives. Advocates visited the home regularly to support young people who wanted an independent person to act on their behalf. The young people were involved in making best interest decisions whenever possible.

The culture of the home was exceptionally open, inclusive and caring. The culture focused strongly on the holistic needs and preferences of each young person and how those needs and preferences could be recognised and met. Fully personalised support plans gave staff detailed guidance on the ways in which each young person preferred to be supported so that consistent care was provided.

Staff received a wide range of training, delivered in creative ways, to ensure they were fully equipped to do their job as well as possible and to maintain the high standards required by the provider and registered manager. Staff felt fully supported by the management team and had numerous opportunities to put forward their views about ways in which the service delivered to the young people could be improved.

Staff demonstrated that they were completely confident to recognis