Tenancy Support Service Coatbridge Housing Support Service 195 Main Street Coatbridge ML5 3BW Telephone: 01236 812 533 Type of inspection: Announced (short notice) Inspection completed on: 4 October 2017 Service provided by: North Lanarkshire Council Service provider number: SP2003000237 Care service number: CS2004069012
About the service Tenancy Support Service Coatbridge is provided by North Lanarkshire Council. The service was previously registered with the Care Commission and transferred its registration to the Care Inspectorate on 1 April 2011. The aim of the service is to provide housing support to people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless by focusing on their housing support needs and tenancy sustainment. The service is provided to people living in the Coatbridge area of North Lanarkshire who reside in a variety of accommodation types including a temporary accommodation unit, dispersed accommodation provided by North Lanarkshire Council, with family/friends and in their own tenancies. At the time of the inspection, support was being provided to around 60 individuals from a team of housing advisors. Support was provided to the team by the support coordinator and registered manager. The team had access to a welfare rights advisor who helped ensure that eligible people receiving the service could access their entitlement to benefits. What people told us During the inspection, we obtained feedback from speaking to three people who used the service, and from a further three people who completed and returned our care standards questionnaires to us prior to the inspection. People were overall happy with the support they received and comments included: 'They [staff] really listen to me, I don't know what I'd have done if it wasn't for my worker. I learned so much that I didn't know before, so I feel like I'm getting more confident.' 'I have been in here a few times and they have always given me good advice, in the past I chose not to take it but I'm going to this time. I feel safe being here, I was glad I got a place here.' 'You can speak to the staff about anything and they always try to help you.' Self assessment We did not ask the provider to submit a self assessment to us this year. We looked at the previous year's self assessment and the provider's own improvement plan. We could see that this was fairly robust and that some areas of improvement had already been addressed. page 2 of 6
From this inspection we graded this service as: Quality of care and support Quality of staffing Quality of management and leadership 5 - Very Good not assessed 5 - Very Good What the service does well We saw that staff supported people in a respectful and encouraging way. We were impressed by how staff worked in a person-centred way to meet people's needs, this included arranging times of support to be flexible to people's needs and commitments and promoting their skills and independence. The service was utilising the Better Futures tool to support staff in measuring progress with people using the service. We found that where this tool was used effectively it helped give an indication that people were achieving positive outcomes. These included becoming more confident and independent. People using the service were encouraged to give feedback about the support they received in a variety of ways. These included surveys where we saw how people who used the supported accommodation unit had influenced improvements that were made to the garden area. This demonstrated that the service listened to people's views and acted on them. The management team was viewed as approachable and supportive, and the whole team was positive about changes made within the organisation to improve communication and inter-team work. We saw that staff had a good degree of autonomy over their workloads which helped them to develop their leadership skills. Communication and quality assurance processes included audits and regular staff meetings to aid the planning and ongoing improvement of the service. These helped the staff to deliver quality support to people. There was a positive, respectful and supportive culture within the service and staff were well-informed about matters such as the National Care Standards and the Scottish Social Services Council. We looked at the service improvement plan. We noted that some areas that were identified in the plan had already been acted on and completed with others continuing to be worked on. The plan had been informed by various quality measures including input from the provider's Continuous Improvement Group that aimed to ensure consistent improvement across the provider's services. What the service could do better We noted that the support files contained risk assessments that were completed with people using the service at the beginning of the support. We noted that these often lacked details in relation to measures to control or minimise the risks identified, and were not updated where we would expect them to be. This included at the frequency identified by the provider of 12 weekly, or where new information or changes to the person's needs became known. Since this issue was an area for improvement at the last inspection, and we did not see significant improvement, we have made this a recommendation. (See recommendation 1) page 3 of 6
The service could benefit from developing a tool to support the evaluation of the service when people are moving on. This could be in the form of an exit questionnaire or closing survey that support staff could carry out with people at the point of closing their support, and could usefully inform the ongoing improvement of the service. We heard from staff about how they had responded to and dealt with incidents within the service. Whilst we were satisfied that appropriate actions had been taken, we spoke to the manager about this in relation to how the provider's system was used by staff in this respect, as we had not received notifications about these incidents. The manager agreed to raise this across the service and for discussions to be held at team meetings to ensure staff understood the reporting procedure and were following this. We will follow-up on this at the next inspection and, in the meantime, will monitor notifications by the service. Whilst we were confident that people were supported in a very person-centred way, we found that the support plan documentation did not reflect this, and it was still difficult to see what personal outcomes people aimed to achieve. We noted that this issue formed part of the ongoing improvement plan, and that the main obstacle to this had been IT systems. Since the provider had already identified this, and had plans in place to address it, we have decided to follow this up at the next inspection. However, this must be given due priority in order to ensure that systems in place within the service support a person-centred and outcome focused approach. Requirements Number of requirements: 0 Recommendations Number of recommendations: 1 1. The provider should ensure that individual risk assessments that are in place for people using the service are robust and effective. They should be reviewed in line with the provider's policy and as soon as there is a change to the person's needs. The risk assessment should detail control measures that are to be put in place in order to remove or reduce the risk. National Care Standards, Housing Support Services, Standard 3: Management and Arrangements. Complaints There have been no complaints upheld since the last inspection. Details of any older upheld complaints are published at www.careinspectorate.com page 4 of 6
Inspection and grading history Date Type Gradings 19 Jan 2016 Announced (short notice) Care and support Management and leadership 27 Feb 2014 Unannounced Care and support 5 - Very good 5 - Very good Management and leadership 5 - Very good 6 Feb 2013 Unannounced Care and support 4 - Good 4 - Good Management and leadership 4 - Good 20 Mar 2012 Unannounced Care and support 4 - Good 4 - Good Management and leadership 14 Oct 2010 Announced Care and support 4 - Good Management and leadership 4 - Good 23 Mar 2010 Announced Care and support 4 - Good 3 - Adequate Management and leadership 3 - Adequate 3 Mar 2009 Announced Care and support 4 - Good 4 - Good Management and leadership 4 - Good page 5 of 6
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. You can also read more about our work online at www.careinspectorate.com Contact us Care Inspectorate Compass House 11 Riverside Drive Dundee DD1 4NY enquiries@careinspectorate.com 0345 600 9527 Find us on Facebook Twitter: @careinspect Other languages and formats This report is available in other languages and formats on request. Tha am foillseachadh seo ri fhaighinn ann an cruthannan is cànain eile ma nithear iarrtas. page 6 of 6