Two of our senior Care leaders have met with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) CEO and the regulator's lead inspectors to talk Prior's Court, our work with autistic young adults and offer some feedback about the new CQC assessment framework.

On Wednesday, 8 May, Emma MacKay, Young People's Wellbeing Lead and Registered Manager for our Young Adult Provision, and Natalie Boothroyd, Director of Wellbeing, met with CQC leaders including CEO Ian Trenholm.

The topics up for discussion included:

• The background to our Young Adult Provision (YAP), why we set it up due to a lack of appropriate 52-week provision post-19 for the autistic young people we work with and dates of opening.
• The bespoke environment of the YAP homes (Dove, Robin and Bradbury), specifically with them being light and airy with easy access outside garden/courtyard space.
• Subsequently the opening of Charlotte House - our community-based home with a focus on independence, vocational opportunities and access to the local community.
• Case studies success of our young people
• The importance of our bespoke approach to autism, the Prior Approach, in all we do
• Sharing of our expertise through TEACCH courses and working with an autism project in India.
• Feedback on our experiences of the new CQC inspection framework

Bradbury Cottages, one of our four Young Adult Provision homes, was recently rated as "good" by the CQC, with the assessment coming as one of the first under the new assessment framework so we were ideally placed to talk about experiences of this framework. There remain five areas of an inspection – Safe, Caring, Responsive, Effective and Well-led but assessments are done against some of the five with previous evidence from the last inspection used to rate others. 

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