Working at Creative Support - High Street

The provider did not deploy enough staff to ensure that people could live full and meaningful lives. While we found no evidence that people had experienced harm as a result of this, the staffing levels presented a risk of psychological harm from isolation as they were not able to go out except for once a week.

There were no records of training for some of the specific conditions people were diagnosed with such as Autism spectrum disorder, Downs syndrome, mental health awareness and training to understand how to manage people's anxieties and behaviours proactively. Training records showed that some training was not updated regularly, such as, epilepsy awareness, first aid and fire safety.

The registered manager told us they were currently managing two other services as well as supporting a further two services. The provider had not considered the impact of this on the registered managers ability to effectively manage this workload... Staff told us they did not feel supported by the provider and they told us they never saw any senior staff at the service.

The ability for people to participate in activities of their choice and a time of their choosing was severely limited by the poor staffing levels. People were only able to go out for around four hours once a week when supported by an external company provided by the council.