The Driving up Quality Code is a set of rules that we want to follow.

1.  Support must be focused on the person.

2. The person is supported to have a meaningful and ordinary life

3.  Care and support focusses on people being happy and having a good quality of life.

4.  A good culture is important the organisation.

5.  Managers and Directors lead and run the organisation well.

How did we check how we are doing this year?

This is called a self-assessment.

Every year we undertake a self-assessment of the care and support we offer and use the ‘Driving Up Quality standards to check our work.

In 2019-20 we asked ‘Skills for People’ , an organisation with trained self – advocates to undertake some work with people we support and their families to see how we were doing .

From December 2019 to February 2020 Susie and Donna from their ‘Quality Checkers ‘team met with people and collected feedback.

They presented their feedback to everyone at our well attended ‘Quality Day’ on February 25th.

The Checks were carried out using the updated REACH Support for Living Standards © Paradigm. These were initially developed by lots of people including Paradigm and Skills for People. The Standards provide a benchmark for people with learning disabilities to review and improve the support and housing they receive.

We want to thank everyone who was involved.

What did people tell us?

How well is Positive Support for You doing in meeting the updated REACH Standards in Supported Living?

The focus of the Quality Checkers visits is to find out what people think about where they live and how they feel about the support they receive and the control they have over their lives.

From our observations people are still receiving good support to think about the risks they may face.

They are helped to keep healthy and safe.

The people we met are still getting good support to access local health services and receive regular health checks.

Once again, we were very fortunate to meet some lovely people and their support staff who welcomed us into their homes.

The staff we met on the visits appear very knowledgeable and are committed to providing good quality support.

Staff told us Positive Support for You are a good organisation to work for, they support their staff and provide good access to training.

The checks we did of Positive Support for You Supported Living Services and the observations we made on the day provided the Quality Checkers with an insight into what life was like for the people who live there.

The Quality Checkers felt that the people they spoke with were receiving good personalised support from their staff and Positive Support For You.

Supporting people to live in ordinary housing

 All the houses we visited are well kept, comfortable, situated on ordinary streets in their local community and provide most people with good access to facilities, amenities and transport. In most cases peoples’ homes reflect the personalities and lives of the people we met. Most people have their own key and answer their own door. Appropriate written arrangements are in place for staff to hold keys if required.

Supporting people to live contented lives

The Quality Checkers are still concerned to hear from a lot of people and support staff that the choice of where people live and who they live with is largely dictated by the process of assessment and the availability of suitable housing stock or 6 placements.

This is a recurrent theme across all social care providers we have carried out quality checks for.

4 people supported we spoke with told us that they are happy with where they live.

1 parent said, “I am unhappy with the location of the home, it is far too isolated”, another parent told us they were included in the decision about where their relative would live.

Most of the people we met appear to be leading full lives and are supported to do this with their support teams, family and friends.

We heard a lot about and were shown photographs of outings, holidays and activities that reflect this.

Other people told us that they go to lots of community places, resource centres and other groups.

Most of the people we met are living in safe areas with good access to local transport and shops.

Family remain an important part of people’s lives and we were glad to have had the opportunity to speak to 2 parents to gather their views about the support their relative is receiving from Positive Support for You.

Both parents were overall very happy with the support their relative was receiving. They told us that complaints are dealt with very quickly and are always invited to reviews and meetings and received good information and updates from staff and management.

2 parents wanted more drivers on the staff team to ensure their relative could get out in their vehicles. We also heard from 1 professional who was also very happy with the bespoke care package the person they were helping received.

Supporting people to have full and healthy lives

People are still receiving good support to access local health services and they are supported to attend annual health checks and appointments.

As we know people with learning disabilities experience health inequalities and research has shown that ‘people with a learning disability die around 20 years younger than other people (Learning Disability Mortality Report 2019).

The Quality check team were very happy to have met 1 person who was supported by their staff team to attend regular smear testing.

Service users said they felt safe and those who spoke to us showed that they knew about abuse and how to report it.

Everyone we met with said they felt the organisation was very open and honest. People knew who the Chief Executive and the other Directors were. They also knew how to contact them if they wanted to talk.

People said they saw the managers involved in their support regularly. They also said they felt they could talk to them.

Service users and staff told us that if they had any concerns or complaints they knew what to do and they felt they would be listened to and helped.

Staff said they felt the organisation worked in a person centred way.

Everyone we spoke to said they enjoyed being part of this Driving up Quality Self-Assessment.

We had good feedback about how managers and the Board of Directors lead and run the organisation.

People said they felt they could talk to everyone easily.

Staff said they liked working for a smaller organisation because they knew the people who lead it.

So what next?

As a Board we are really keen that we take the feedback that the people who took part in our Driving up Quality Assessment and use it to make things better.

These are the things we are going to do:

Look at ways to involve people supported in training new staff during induction.

Dave and Jackie will look at using films to help people have involvement in induction whilst keeping themselves safe from Covid.

Encourage feedback from families/carers and other professionals no matter how small to ensure mutual understanding of individual choice and to explore staffing concerns for some parents.

Catriona will ensure these issues are checked at each person -centred review

1 individual was very concerned about their support hours being reduced. They told us they very anxious about how vulnerable this made them and were worried this would make them go back to their old ways.

We have supported this person to have their views heard by the Local Authority involved.

We should better involve people we support in staff recruitment.

Catriona and Dave will review this and bring forward some new ideas by January 2021.

Review the housing tenancy agreements with people supported to ensure they are in an easy read format. Where appropriate managers and staff should check that people have access and understand the contents.

Linzi and Jenifer will check the housing agreements are in easy read format and check with everyone they have access to them and understand them.

Support 1 person to receive a copy of their tenancy agreement to ensure they are being helped to understand their rights and responsibilities as a tenant.

This has been addressed. The one person without a copy of their tenancy was deemed to lack capacity and the Local Authority had made arrangements under the MCA to sign this.

Consider how they can promote the updated REACH Standards in Supported Living through staff training and the induction programme for new and existing staff.

Jackie will review our induction material and ensure REACH standards are covered.

Positive Support for You considers how it can incorporate the REACH Standards in Supported Living and our Quality Checking model within existing quality monitoring and reviewing systems.

Catriona will do this in the next round of person- centred reviews

Consider enabling people supported to engage in the opportunity to become involved in the auditing of services provided by Positive Support for You.

Skills For People with our help to include on next Quality Check Spring 2021

Positive Support for You considers how they can promote opportunities for people to mix with other groups within their local communities.

People we support have their own support, live in their own homes in their community and enjoy many opportunities to participate. However, we are not complacent and look to enable more opportunities for people to choose. We will look at this to build on what we do, It’s something which needs to be done safely given the Covid issues. Cheryl and Tia to undertake work with teams during winter 0f 2020 /21 and feed back to Board by February 2021.

Consider offering friendship and community mapping workshops for staff

We will do this and deliver it in a safe way to staff. Dave – will have this in place by January 2021.

Easy Read Documents: We were told by people that we support that we could do better at making easy read documents. We are working hard to do this!

If you want to telephone us this is the number you should ring:

01642 787547

You can ask to talk to either: