Membership review for The Studio

Exclusive Care is a small organisation which currently runs an apparently successful residential service in Hertfordshire. They have recently been approved by the Care Quality Commission to offer the supported living service.

 

On the day of the visit, the supported living service which operates from Exclusive Care’s office in Wooburn Green in Buckinghamshire was not offering a service to any individuals. This was perhaps not surprising as it was a fairly new venture. Therefore, this review is more about the potential of the service than any measurable outcomes thus far. The positive things for me though, were that the staff for the service were already essentially in place and seemingly trained to a level that would be required to support an individual with autism due in part to them having worked within the residential service and having received all the mandatory training and in some cases beyond that.There was also a significant amount of expertise with regard to the management of the service and also the ability to be flexible in terms of both supporting individual need and offering the service across quite a wide stretch of outer and north London.

Introduction

 

Exclusive Care started out with a residential service in Hertfordshire and is now looking to offer both supported living and domiciliary care packages. Although the supported living service is based in Wooburn Green the set up seems pretty flexible and adaptable and Exclusive Care offers a range of supportive options for service users who have been identified as having needs that are complex in terms of support, housing, enablement and community participation.

 

Exclusive Care states that these options include:

• Support in the home with daily-living tasks and personal development.

• Support to assist the individual with activities and social inclusion.

• Support for college, skill training and employment.

• Support to allow the individual to have a holiday in a location of their choice.

• Support in the home to manage a tenancy agreement to enable community integration.

 

Ideally, Exclusive Care is looking to deliver packages of 30 to 40 hours care per week to individuals.

On the day of the visit, there were no individuals being supported by the scheme, so I could make no judgement with regard to the environment either internally or externally in terms of tenancies. Exclusive Care states that ’Individuals will be assisted as part of their person centred planning process to find properties which are within established community facilities’ and that ‘properties will be adapted to meet the needs of individual tenants’. The base for the service itself is situated in an office in Wooburn Green. Andrew Anderson (Managing Director) agreed that when the service becomes busier it would be good to relocate to another office and helpfully Exclusive Care have another couple of spaces in the locality. Any visitors to the Wooburn Green office should note that parking is available in a nearby car park.

See comments under The Environment (External)

The areas served by Exclusive Care’s supported living service provide a lot of social leisure opportunities as well as supported employment links that are already well established with a local garden centre and Morrisons Supermarket. Local transport links appear to be very good both in terms of proximity to motorways and public transport and you can be in London within half an hour using a local train service.

Both Andrew Anderson, Managing Director, and David Roberts, the Service Manager, have extensive experience in both working with individuals with autism and particularly in Andrew’s case managing services for individuals with autism. 

 

The three residents living at Exclusive Care’s residential home are all diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum and it is clear that Exclusive Care as an organisation is very autism focused. The individuals have varying abilities and a variety of tools are used to assist with communication including the Picture Exchange Communication System and an iPad. 

 

Both Andrew and David mentioned the importance of good relations with families of individuals they support and care for. The whole gamut of policies and procedures were seen to be in place

Exclusive Care staff members receive medication training from Hertfordshire Council. 

The health and well-being plans and strategies will be carried over from Exclusive’s residential provision to this service and this will include a nutritional assessment.

 

Andrew spoke of the positive relationships forged with a local General Practitioner’s surgery.

This being quite a new service as previously stated, no individuals were being supported on the day of the visit, however Andrew Anderson felt that support could be offered to individuals across the autistic spectrum and this could be a domiciliary arrangement where a care element is also provided.

I felt both Andrew and David demonstrated a person centred approach in their thinking in the way they spoke about the service and how they saw it developing particularly in terms of choices for the individual in terms of who supports them and in other life choices.

No member of staff is allowed to work with an individual before having a satisfactory Criminal Records Bureau or Protection of Vulnerable Adults check. New staff members can ‘shadow’ if they have over 6 months remaining on their Criminal Records Bureau check from their previous job.

There seemed quite a short induction period for staff which I queried and Andrew Anderson (Managing Director) stated that the induction period would depend largely on the person’s previous experience. There is a 3-month probationary period for staff over which time staff members complete their mandatory training and there appear to be opportunities for career development within the service as two members of staff are currently undertaking management training. Hertfordshire County Council have also been very helpful in terms of the training packages they have provided for Exclusive Care staff. One of these is a bespoke low arousal physical intervention package based around Pro Act Skip devised for the needs of people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour. 

Staff receive supervision sessions every four weeks or every fortnight if they are new. A whole range of policies and procedures were seen to be in place many of which have been carried over from Exclusive Care’s residential service.

Exclusive Care currently has no relationships with housing providers and, as explained previously,was not yet providing support to any individuals so I cannot comment in this section.

From the time I spent with Andrew Anderson and David Roberts at Exclusive Care I could see that there was great enthusiasm and great potential for the service to develop. The positive things for me were that the staff for the service were already essentially in place and trained to a level that would be required to support an individual with autism.There was also a significant amount of expertise with regard to the management of the service and the service’s ability to be flexible in terms of geographical area. In addition, the fact that they can support individuals across the autistic spectrum makes the service very appealing.

 

---

Visiting Officer - Craig Godding
Director of Compliance and Client Liaison, Living Autism