About the service: Care Assure Northampton Limited provides care and support to people with mental health needs living in five ‘supported living’ settings, so that they can live as independently as possible. At the time of the inspection the service was supporting 17 people.

People’s experience of using this service:

People developed positive relationships with staff who were friendly and passionate about their work. Staff treated people with respect, kindness, dignity and compassion.

There were systems in place to monitor the quality of the service and drive improvements, however these needed to be embedded for us to assess how effective they were.

People had detailed personalised plans of care to enable staff to provide consistent care and support in line with people’s preferences. They were supported to maintain good health and nutrition and access activities within the community. The service focussed on people’s recovery and promoting their independence.

Staff knew their responsibilities as defined by the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA 2005). The provider was aware of how to make referrals if people lacked capacity to consent to aspects of their care and support and were being deprived of their liberty.

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

Staff had access to the support, supervision and training they required to work effectively in their roles and they liaised closely with other health professionals.

People knew how to raise a concern or make a complaint and the provider had implemented effective systems to manage any complaints received. Information was provided to people in an accessible format to enable them to make decisions about their care and support.

The service had a positive ethos and an open culture. The manager was approachable, understood the needs of people, and listened to staff and relatives.

The service met the characteristics for a rating of “good” in four of the five key questions we inspected and rating of “requires improvement” in one. Therefore, our overall rating for the service after this inspection was “good”.

Rating at last inspection: Good (report published 10 October 2016)

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the rating at the last inspection.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor the service through the information we receive until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If any concerning information is received, we may inspect sooner.

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

This inspection took place over two days on 1 September and 8 September 2016.

Care Assure Northampton Ltd provides a 24hr support service to enable adults with mental health needs to continue living in the community in shared occupancy housing. When we inspected the service provided support to 19 people in five houses located in Northampton.

A registered manager was in post. 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.

People benefitted from receiving support from staff that were caring, friendly, and responsive to people’s changing needs. People were supported as tenants in shared occupancy housing by trained staff that were able to support them safely. Staff were able to demonstrate that they understood what was required of them to provide people with the support they needed to remain living in the community.

People’s support plans reflected their needs and choices about how they preferred their day-to-day support to be provided. People were treated with dignity and their right to make choices was respected.

There were sufficient numbers of support staff employed to meet people’s assessed needs. People were protected from the risks associated with the recruitment of support staff unsuited to the role by the provider’s recruitment procedures. Comprehensive risk assessments associated with people's mental health needs were also in place. This assessments enabled support staff to manage risks to people's health without compromising their right to make choices.

People benefitted from a service that was appropriately managed so that people received their service in a timely and reliable way. Support staff were deployed to work in the share occupancy houses so that each tenant always had the assistance they needed throughout the day and night, seven days a week.

People’s rights were protected and decisions about their care and support were taken in their best interest. People had the information and guidance they needed to raise concerns or make a complaint. There were procedures in place to ensure complaints were appropriately investigated and action was taken to make improvements to the service when necessary.

When we inspected, this small domiciliary agency supported 17 adults with a range of mental health needs living in their own accommodation within the Northampton area. With their prior agreement we met with people in one of the shared houses that accommodated five adults and asked them about their experience of using this agency’s domiciliary support services. Each person we spoke with was pleased with the standard of care and support provided by the staff. One person commented, “I really get on well with all the staff and I have all the support I need to help me get on with my life.”

We found that people were provided with all the practical assistance, support, and day-to-day encouragement they needed to live independently in their own accommodation and engage with the community. We saw from records and from talking with staff that people had been enabled to make informed choices about their lifestyle. We also found that people’s preferences for the way they wanted their support to be provided had been taken into account and acted upon.

We found this small agency to be appropriately managed and we saw that people received reliable, safe and effective care that enabled them to live independently in their own accommodation.