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.

We arranged lots of events so we could talk to different people.

We asked Kirsty Morgan from Inclusion North to help us. She helps people speak up for themselves and say how they really feel.

Directors are people who are involved with big decisions in the organisation. They visited service users and their families. This was find out whether support was focused on the person and if they had a meaningful and ordinary life.

Support Workers and Team Managers were also visited by Directors.

This was to find out if care and support focusses on people being happy and having a good quality of life. They also found out if a good culture is important to the organisation

Senior Managers and Directors spent a day together with Kirsty Morgan. This was so we could assess how effective we are at leading and running the organisation.

We want to thank everyone who was involved.

What did people tell us?

1.      Support must be focused on the person

People explained the different types of support they had. This was from a few hours per week to some people who had support 24 hours a day and sometimes with more than one member of staff.

Lots of service users told us that they are supported to do some great things.

Some service users said they are doing more things now than they had been able to do in the past.

People said that staff listened to them and helped them.

Some service users told us how support had helped them to keep in touch with friends and family.

One person told us that the shift times for his staff had been a problem for having longer days out. We had listened to this and changed the times so he could do go out for longer without this being a problem.

Lots of people had good stories about holidays and trips they had chosen to plan.

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

Service users told us about good experiences they had living their day to day lives in their community. This included taking control of cooking, shopping, cleaning and all other aspects of living in their own home.

There was feedback from people who said staff helped them to manage their money and they were happy with this. Other people said they sorted their own money and didn’t need support.

It was mentioned by two service users that they weren’t very happy because they had to pay for support worker’s travel when they were in the community. Unfortunately this is something which needs to happen in most cases.

Others said they enjoyed keeping pets, going to church and more people said they were happy that they were supported to keep in touch with their family and friends.

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

Lots of people told us they felt they had a good quality of life and that they were happy.

One person told us their legal order had changed so they could have more time without staff there. We are working with them and other people involved to make sure this is done in the best way for them to be safe and happy.

We were pleased that staff were person centred and showed they were focused on helping service users have a happy and good quality life.

It was said by some people that they were much happier in their own home with support rather than in hospital or living in other places.

We hear some stories of service users going to work and going places to learn new things. Not everyone talked about this so we think we can do more in the area to make sure everyone has that option – if they want to do it.

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

4.         A good culture is important the organisation.

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.

Some service users and staff told us that they felt we could do more to tell them things which are happening in different parts of the organisation.

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

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.

Everyone we supported and everyone who worked for us were invited to the Christmas Party last year. People told us this was a good thing and we should do more events like this.

Kirsty Morgan from Inclusion North told us we could do more to involve service users, their family members and our staff in bigger decisions about the organisation.

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:

Advisory Group: This is for people we support and their family members and will meet three or four times a year. Directors will always come along and will talk about what is happening in the organisation. Everyone can say what they think and will be listened to.

 Social events for everyone: We will have two events each year. We will give the money to the Advisory Group, and support those members to plan these. People enjoyed the Christmas Party last year.

Newsletter:  We will produce a newsletter four times a year which will go to people we support, staff and family members. Anyone can give us information to put in this.

Management Checks: We are including people more in quality checks. These are to make sure we are doing everything we can for the people we support.

Involving service users, family and staff in bigger decisions: People we support will always be involved in recruiting and interviewing new staff. We want to look at involving people we support in training and marketing too if they want.

Whistleblowing: We wanted to make it easier for anyone with a concern to contact someone outside of day to day management. We have set up a direct whistleblowing email address to Martin Clinton who is a Director.

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: