Hope Care Agency is a care at home service providing support to older people. We carried out a visit to the service on 28 January 2025. At the time of the assessment, there were 22 people receiving support with personal care. The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 19 October 2019). At this assessment the rating has remained requires improvement. We found breaches of 3 regulations in relation to safe care and treatment, staffing and good governance. Staff did not receive appropriate training to maintain high-quality care. Medicines were not managed safely. There were systems to learn when things went wrong, although these were not always followed. The provider did not always assess risks to people's health and safety or mitigate them where identified. In instances where CQC have decided to take civil or criminal enforcement action against a provider, we will publish this information on our website.
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Hope Care Agency received a 'Requires Improvement' rating following a focused November–December 2022 inspection, with breaches of Regulations 12, 17, and 19 identified across risk management, medicines, recruitment, infection control, and governance. Despite staff and people reporting positive experiences and feeling safe, the provider's quality assurance systems failed to identify or mitigate significant shortfalls.
Concerns (8)
criticalCare planning: “care plans lacked sufficient detail to ensure staff understood how to care for people safely... care plan and risk assessment did not contain any information to ensure staff understood how to carry out this task safely.”
criticalMedication management: “Medicines were not managed safely in line with current best practice guidance. Care plans lacked sufficient detail to ensure staff understood the support people required to take their medicines.”
criticalStaffing levels: “The provider did not follow safe recruitment processes as they had not obtained a full employment history when recruiting new staff.”
criticalGovernance: “The provider did not have effective systems in place to monitor the safety and quality of the service as they had not identified the issues we found with care plans, risk assessments, consent to care, medicine records.”
moderateStaff competency: “Staff received training in the administration of medicines, however, their competency had not been assessed in line with best practice guidance.”
moderateInfection control: “The infection control policy had not been updated with information and guidelines related to COVID-19. The provider had also not assessed the risk to people receiving care or staff.”
moderateSupervision / appraisal: “some staff had not received a spot check or supervision in over 12 months.”
moderateMissed or late visits: “The systems in place to ensure people received their care visits as planned was not robust and the risk of failed visits had not been adequately assessed and/or mitigated.”
Strengths
· People told us they felt safe with the care they received and expressed high trust in their regular carers.
· Staff demonstrated good understanding of safeguarding and whistleblowing procedures.
· Incidents were reviewed by the registered manager and previous safety incidents were discussed in team meetings to share learning.
· People and relatives reported carers arrived on time and communicated proactively about delays.
· Client satisfaction survey showed people were generally very satisfied with care received.
Quality-Statement breakdown (11)
safe: Assessing risk, safety monitoring and managementRequires improvement
safe: Using medicines safelyRequires improvement
safe: Staffing and recruitmentRequires improvement
safe: Preventing and controlling infectionRequires improvement
safe: Systems and processes to safeguard people from the risk of abuseGood
safe: Learning lessons when things go wrongGood
well-led: Managers and staff being clear about their roles, quality performance, risks and regulatory requirements; Continuous learning and improving careRequires improvement
well-led: Engaging and involving people using the service, the public and staffGood
well-led: Duty of candourGood
well-led: Promoting a positive, person-centred and open cultureGood