Northants Community Care Limited received an overall Good rating following a focused inspection of the Safe and Well-Led key questions, prompted by concerns about safe care. While the service demonstrated safe recruitment, effective safeguarding, and a positive caring culture, governance audits failed to identify issues with late care calls, representing a missed opportunity for learning and improvement.
Concerns (4)
moderate
Governance
: “Audits undertaken to monitor the quality of care provided were not always in place to identify issues needing improvement, such as the reliability of the service.”
moderateIncident learning: “Issues were not identified in audits with regard to late untimely care calls... this meant the opportunity to learn lessons may have been missed.”
minorMissed or late visits: “Two relatives said that on some occasions when staff did not arrive on time, they had not received a call to inform them when staff would be available.”
minorCare planning: “Some people did not have specific call times. There was no evidence in place that they had agreed to flexible call times.”
Strengths
· Staff were recruited safely with DBS checks and good character references completed.
· People and relatives spoke of the friendliness and caring attitude of staff and management.
· People felt safe and staff were knowledgeable about safeguarding procedures and reporting.
· Risk assessments were in place covering a range of issues including environmental hazards.
· Staff received infection control training and PPE was always available.
Quality-Statement breakdown (11)
safe: Staffing and recruitmentGood
safe: Systems and processes to safeguard people from the risk of abuseGood
safe: Assessing risk, safety monitoring and managementGood
safe: Preventing and controlling infectionGood
safe: Learning lessons when things go wrongGood
safe: Using medicines safelyGood
well-led: Managers and staff being clear about their roles, and understanding quality performance, risks and regulatory requirementsGood
well-led: Continuous learning and improving care; Promoting a positive cultureGood
well-led: How the provider understands and acts on the duty of candourGood
well-led: Engaging and involving people using the service, the public and staffGood