About the service: Avalon Services Doncaster provides people with care and support to live as independently as possible in a variety of settings in the community. The service is managed from an office based in Doncaster. The service provides care and support to 41 people living in 'supported living' settings, so that they can live in their own home as independently as possible. People's care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people's personal care and support. At the time of this inspection there were four people living in supported living and receiving personal care.

The service also provided care and support to seven people living as part of a shared lives scheme. 'Shared lives' is an arrangement whereby people either live or spend time with self-employed care providers who support them according to their assessed needs in a family environment. Shared lives schemes are designed to support adults with learning disabilities, mental health conditions, or other needs that make it harder for them to live on their own. The schemes match an adult who has care needs with an approved shared lives carer. These carers share their family and community life, and give care and support to the adult with care needs.

People’s experience of using this service:

¿We received positive feedback about the service from people and relatives.

¿Staff understood their responsibilities about keeping people safe.

¿Relatives were positive about all aspects of the service provided.

¿ People received a consistent level of care from a team of regular care workers. There were enough staff employed to meet people's needs.

¿ Risks to people were managed in a way that kept them as safe as possible. Risk management guidelines were in place to help care workers when supporting people.

¿ Staff were trained to administer medicines should they need to administer them. Regular audits of medicines were carried out.

¿ The provider arranged training for staff that met the needs of people using the service. They were assessed for their competency which helped to ensure they were safe to work with people.

¿ Care plans were individual and met the needs of people using the service. They included people's choices and preferences. They were person centred and included ways in which staff could support people emotionally and the activities they enjoyed.

¿ No recent formal complaints had been received from people or their relatives.

¿ Feedback from relatives and staff was positive and they felt the service was well-led. They told us the managers were always available to speak with and were responsive.

¿ Quality assurance checks were regularly carried out.

¿ The service met the characteristics for a rating of "Good" in all the key questions we inspected. Therefore, our overall rating for the service after this inspection was "Good."

¿ More information is in our full report.

Rating at last inspection: This is the service’s first rating.

Why we inspected: This was a scheduled comprehensive inspection.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor the service through the information we receive.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk