Woodview Housing Support Service
3 Urquhart Place Lhanbryde Elgin IV30 8HQ
Telephone: 01343 567103
Type of inspection: Unannounced
Completed on: 3 September 2018
Service provided by: Service provider number: The Moray Council SP2003001892
Service no: CS2017355870 Inspection report
About the service
Woodview was registered with the Care Inspectorate on 11 August 2017 to provide a combined care at home and housing support service for adults with learning disabilities and autism living in their own homes.
Woodview was managed and provided by The Moray Council and supported people living in purpose built accommodation in Lhanbryde, near Elgin. People were living in their own individual tenancies and had access to a communal building which could be used for social activities.
Woodview's aims and objectives were:
To provide a service to people with complex and challenging needs and, - Ensure they can be treated with dignity and respect - Have their own tenancy and ensure that they have privacy and can be safe - Ensure the service users are able to make informed choice. - Are not overprotected and remain free from exploitation and abuse. - That all service users make use of all resources available to them - That service users are able to live as independent la ife as possible whilst being treated equally.
What people told us
For this inspection we gathered people's views in a variety of different ways. The manager was asked to hand out the following:
- Four care standards questionnaires to people who experienced support from the service and we received three back, - Ten staff questionnaires, of which we received none back.
During our inspection we spoke with or met:
- six people who experienced support from the service, - Eight relatives of people who experienced support from the service, - Seventeen staff members, - Two external professionals.
Given the complex nature of people's needs, we were unable to gain people's views on the service they experienced. Contact was made with people's relatives, of which, some were their legally appointed guardian. With the exception of one family member, the majority of people were very happy with the service and were able to talk about a number of positive aspects about their relatives' experience. Some of the comments people shared were:
- 'The move has been fantastic' - 'All the things I've said have been taken on board' - 'Things are going way better than my expectations' - 'All in all they do a grand job with XXX, happy with all his carers'.
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Self assessment
Self-assessments are not requested from this type of service. During the inspection we asked to see the service's improvement and development plan. The service was newly registered and discussions took place about how the improvement and development plans could develop.
From this inspection we graded this service as:
Quality of care and support 5 - Very Good Quality of staffing 4 - Good Quality of management and leadership 4 - Good
Quality of care and support
Findings from the inspection The care and support offered to people was of a very good standard which meant there were major strengths.
Woodview was established to support four people who had previously lived in a care home. The vision was to enable individuals to move into their own purpose build accommodation in the village of Lhanbryde. The service later began supporting a further four individuals to move into the remaining accommodations in the same development.
The service enabled people to get the most out of life because people and the organisation who supported and cared for them had an enabling attitude and believed in people's potential. This was clear when considering the increase in opportunities which people were able to experience. For example, people were able to access their local community, where they had been unable to do so before, be this for shopping, or a walk, or to take part in an activity.
Staff who worked in the service helped to positively protect people from harm, because they were alert and responded to any signs of significant deterioration in people's health and wellbeing, or when someone was showing signs that they were unhappy. People were living in their own individual tenancies, which meant that they were in the right place to experience the care and support that they needed or wanted. This had a positive impact on the ways people expressed themselves through behaviours of concern and occurrences of these expressions of behaviour had reduced significantly orf people. Contributing to this was the ability for people to spend some time alone when they wanted to, or by experiencing different recreational, social or physical activities, be this indoors or outside.
People's care and support was being reviewed when this was necessary and there had been a significant level of changes in how people were being supported. This meant that people's care and support needs were right for them. The service had experienced significant challenges around internet access, which affected computer use for a number of months when the service had opened, but staff had worked hard to overcome these challenges. As people continue to settle within their new environments, the service should continue to adapt people's care and support to positively influence people's opportunities, helping to ealiser people's outcomes.
There were a lot of environmental restrictions in place for people in their own homes and it would be expected that these are reviewed regularly. To support this, the service was asked to develop restrictive practice logs to
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enable easier review. This would ensure that any treatment or interventions people experienced to keep them safe was being considered to see if it was necessary and was being effective.
Requirements Number of requirements: 0
Recommendations Number of recommendations: 0
Grade: 5 - very good
Quality of staffing
Findings from the inspection The quality of the staffing theme was of a good standard which meant there were important strengths with some areas for improvement.
Some staff had transferred into the service from their previous workplace and the service had recruited a considerable level of new staff. People should be confident that staff who support and care for them have been appropriately and safely recruited. This was difficult for us to ascertain within the service when we reviewed recruitment records, due to a number of key recruitment documents being destroyed. This went against the organisation's policy on record retention. This was highlighted to the provider at feedback and steps had been taken to address this issue.
Staff who came into post were supported with induction training and extensive shadow opportunities. These enabled trusting relationships to be formed with the person they were supporting, allowing both staff and the individual to feel comfortable prior to any lone working with the person. Staff were well trained, competent and skilled and were able to reflect on their practice, following their professional and organisational codes. Observations of staff interactions with people they were supporting were seen to be respectful and appropriate. Staff demonstrated that they had a good level of knowledge of people's support needs.
Staff knowledge on self directed support was not consistent and it was discussed with the manager of the service how this could be developed. Self-directed support is about people being in control of the support they need to live the life they choose.
Staff were supported by line managers who offered them regular opportunities to meet and discuss their job roles. This pattern of meetings had been established and team meetings were beginning to establish in a more regular pattern within the service. The service should continue to promote the opportunities for staff to get together to discuss their job roles. This would continue to allow practice discussions and for teams of staff to consider any changes that the team felt were necessary to enhance people's experiences.
Requirements Number of requirements: 0
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Recommendations Number of recommendations: 0
Grade: 4 - good
Quality of management and leadership
Findings from the inspection The quality of the management and leadership theme was of a good standard which meant there were important strengths with some areas for improvement.
Within this service there were local managers and a registered manager was predominantly based offsite. Staff were able to get support from managers when this was needed to help with situations that arose. This meant that people's care and support was being provided in a planned and safe way, which included if there was an emergency or an unexpected event. Feedback was sought from people's legal guardians in respect of the care and support being received by people, which meant people were involved in improving the service they were using, in a spirit of genuine partnership. There had been lots of partnership working involved with other external professionals to help support the positive experiences people had when they moved into their new homes. This continued with a strong management and leadership focus on the importance of partnerships, to help and support getting it right for people who experienced the services.
People should benefit from a culture of continuous improvement with the organisation having robust and transparent quality assurance processes. Within the service we found that this was an area the management needed to develop and improve upon. Although we did not have concerns necessarily about the experiences people had from the service, this was an area which lacked evidence to support the positive work the service was doing. For instance, the management should develop ways in which they gain feedback from people; the management should be able to evidence more transparently the quality checks they take to assure them that the service is working in the best possible way to support people's outcomes. This would enable the management team to develop their improvement and development plan, linking this to how they will measure success or demonstrate the effect these improvements have had on people's experiences.
Staff did not always feel they received the right level of support around significant incidents within the service, which they had reported using the accident or incident reporting procedures. When discussing this with management, it was evident there were things that could be done to improve this level of managerial support to staff. There needed to be improvements in the level of post incident debrief discussions with staff, to make sure that staff felt supported in these situations. These discussions often were a way to reflect on situations to assure everyone that the support was right for the people being supported by the service. The manager was going to look at ways to ensure this support was offered more consistently to staff.
Requirements Number of requirements: 0
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Recommendations Number of recommendations: 0
Grade: 4 - good
What the service has done to meet any requirements we made at or since the last inspection
Previous requirements
There are no outstanding requirements.
What the service has done to meet any recommendations we made at or since the last inspection
Previous recommendations
There are no outstanding recommendations.
Complaints
There have been no complaints upheld since the last inspection. Details of any older upheld complaints are published at www.careinspectorate.com.
Enforcement
No enforcement action has been taken against this care service since the last inspection.
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Inspection and grading history
This service does not have any prior inspection history or grades.
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To find out more
This inspection report is published by the Care Inspectorate. You can download this report and others from our website.
Care services in Scotland cannot operate unless they are registered with the Care Inspectorate. We inspect, award grades and help services to improve. We also investigate complaints about care services and can take action when things aren't good enough.
Please get in touch with us if you would like more information or have any concerns about a care service.
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