ELY DIOCESAN ASSOCIATION FOR DEAF PEOPLE (Cambridgeshire Deaf Association)

Updated 7 May 2024

ELY DIOCESAN ASSOCIATION FOR DEAF PEOPLE (Cambridgeshire Deaf Association) is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people living in their own houses or flats. It provides a service to older and younger adults primarily living in the Deaf Community. At the beginning of the assessment, 8 people were being supported with personal care by the service. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. We completed visits to the service on 25 June, 21 August and 4 December 2024. This was an announced assessment. The registered manager was told an assessment would be starting 48hrs beforehand. Our offsite assessment was concluded on 18 December 2024. This assessment was undertaken by 2 inspectors, and we looked at 16 quality statements and found areas of good practice. We found some areas of governance and oversight required improvement during this assessment. Those areas included implementing additional care plans and risk assessments for people with specific health conditions. Furthermore, some staff competency assessments were overdue for medicines administration and safe manual handling. Areas which required improvement were acted upon by the registered manager during the assessment timeframe, and these were reviewed by us prior to concluding the assessment process.

Updated 7 May 2024

This assessment was supported by 2 independent British Sign Language interpreters. This ensured we were able to gain the views and experiences of people, and the staff, who supported them. People told us they received safe support from caring staff who knew them well. People and staff felt the care provided was good, however had experienced some unsettling staff changes prior to our assessment. During the assessment we found improvements had taken place, and the service was fully staffed. People told us they had confidence in the staff team, and they felt empowered. People were encouraged to make their own choices and work towards goals. People told us staff respected their right to privacy and received good support to maintain links within the community, which included activities of choice, health promotion and education. The provider had effective communication systems which ensured information was provided to people in their preferred format. This included British Sign Language training for staff where it was required. Independent advocacy services were available for people, and we saw these services were encouraged by the provider.