First inspection of this newly registered domiciliary care agency (4 service users) rated Good overall and across all five key questions. Minor recommendations were made regarding meeting the Accessible Information Standard, with smaller observations about infection control policy updates and record-keeping detail.
Concerns (5)
minor
Communication with families
: “The service was not fully meeting the AIS... the service did not routinely identify when people may need documents provided in alternative formats.”
minorInfection control: “The provider's infection control policy had not been updated to reflect changes to guidance and legislation.”
minorRecord keeping: “Care workers recorded when they had provided food and drink but did not always detail exactly what people had had.”
minorCare planning: “Plans were detailed about people's dietary restrictions for cultural and health reasons but sometimes were not detailed about people's particular preferences for food.”
minorRecord keeping: “Daily notes did not always describe people's wellbeing and how this may change, which could mean it would be more difficult to see early warning signs”
Strengths
· People treated with kindness and respect; care workers spoke people's preferred languages and understood cultural needs
· Punctual care from consistent staff who people had come to know well
· Safe recruitment with full work history, references, ID and DBS checks
· Appropriate training, induction, shadowing, supervision and spot checks for staff
· Registered manager regularly engaged with people and carried out audits to ensure quality
Quality-Statement breakdown (19)
safe: Safeguarding systems and processesGood
safe: Assessing risk, safety monitoring and managementGood
safe: Staffing and recruitmentGood
safe: Using medicines safelyGood
safe: Preventing and controlling infectionGood
safe: Learning lessons when things go wrongGood
effective: Assessing needs and delivering care in line with standardsGood
effective: Staff support, training, skills and experienceGood
effective: Supporting people to eat and drink enoughGood
effective: Working with other agencies and supporting healthcare accessGood
effective: Ensuring consent in line with MCAGood
caring: Ensuring people are well treated and supported; equality and diversityGood
caring: Respecting and promoting privacy, dignity and independenceGood
responsive: Planning personalised careGood
responsive: Meeting people's communication needsGood
responsive: Improving care quality in response to complaintsGood
well-led: Promoting a positive person-centred culture and engaging people and staffGood
well-led: Clear roles, governance, quality performance and duty of candourGood
well-led: Continuous learning, improvement and partnership workingGood