Lumina Care Wigan & St Helens

On this page

• Overview
• Learning culture
• Safe systems, pathways and transitions
• Safeguarding
• Involving people to manage risks
• Safe environments
• Safe and effective staffing
• Infection prevention and control
• Medicines optimisation

Our rating is good. Some care plans and risk assessments needed to be updated to ensure they contained enough detail to mitigate risks to people’s physical health. Some aspects of medicines management needed to be reviewed to ensure sufficiently robust systems were being followed by care staff. Actions were taken by the manager during the assessment to respond to any shortfalls in these areas. Systems were in place to ensure accidents and incidents which occurred were recorded, reported and appropriately analysed to demonstrate lessons learnt and ensured people were protected from the risk of abuse. Staff understood how to protect people from the risks of infection and how to ensure peoples home environment was safe. Staff were recruited safely. There were enough staff to ensure people’s safety and meet their needs. Staff received appropriate training. This included training to effectively support people with a learning disability and autistic people. The provider’s trainer had experience in supporting people with a learning disability. This meant, should a person from this population group need support in the future then the staff had access to specialist support and knowledge.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

People told us they felt safe with the support they received from a regular team of staff who knew them well.

Staff were able to describe the process for reporting and recording accidents and incidents and gave examples how steps had been put in place to avoid recurrence. For example, referring people to other healthcare services following a fall.

Systems were in place to record and report events which occurred. When appropriate, family members and other agencies were kept informed. Systems were in place to learn from events which occurred. This demonstrated a culture of learning.

People told us the provider had worked with them to establish safe systems of care and worked effectively with other agencies to ensure their needs were met. One person told us, “They came to see me in hospital and asked how many times a week I want them and what times. Things like that. They [different care partners] are all in touch with each other.”

Staff were able to describe how they supported people through periods of transition. This included when people were supported to, and home from, hospital admissions.

We sought feedback from partners about how the provider worked effectively with other agencies through periods of transition. We did not receive any information of concern with respect to this. A recent assessment of the provider by the local authority demonstrated positive feedback.

Systems were in place to ensure appropriate care records were maintained by staff when people moved between services. This included when referrals to other agencies had been made following a period of transition.

People told us they felt protected from the risk of abuse and spoke fondly about the staff. One person told us, “The staff are very good. You couldn’t get better.”

Staff told us they had access to safeguarding policies and procedures. Staff were able to describe the process for reporting concerns and told us they were confident the manager would take appropriate actions following any concerns raised.

Clear systems were in place to ensure any safeguarding concerns were appropriately recorded, reported and action was taken to protect people. We reviewed the provider records which demonstrated the manager was proactive in responding to any concerns.

People confirmed they had the equipment they needed to maintain their safety and mitigate any risks. People told us staff knew how to support them well and discussed any care needs with them.

Staff told us they could access peoples care plans and risk assessments easily and they were easy to follow. One staff member said, “We use the [electronic care plan] app so we can access every clients care plan on this and they contain all the information we need.”

Care plans and risk assessments were in place although some lacked detail around people’s specific health conditions. We raised this with the manager who immediately responded and made the necessary improvements.

People told us staff maintained their home environment to a high standard when this was part of the agreed package of care.

Staff described the equipment used to support people and how they monitored equipment, such as hoists and specialist beds, for faults.

Risk assessments were undertaken on people’s living environments. This ensured environmental risks to people and visiting care staff were identified, and appropriate measures to mitigate any risk put in place.

Most people told us they received support from a consistent staff team which meant they had formed positive relationships. One person said, “I always have the same care staff. I miss them when they are not here.” However, one family member told us this was not always the case, and they had experienced some inconsistencies. We shared this feedback with the manager who told us they would review the care calls for this person.

Staff told us there were enough staff. One staff member said, “I think it is pretty good to be fair, there doesn’t seem to be a massive amount of requests for work to be picked up.” Staff confirmed they received an induction when they started their employment, which a staff member described as, “Well done and detailed” as well as ongoing training for their role.

Staff were safely recruited and trained. Appropriate checks were undertaken before a staff member was offered employment. Staff were supervised on a regular basis to observe practices and check on their ongoing competency. Systems were in place to monitor the time staff spent at calls and to ensure no calls were missed.

People told us they were protected from the risk of infection and staff wore appropriate protective personal equipment (PPE) when providing care.

Staff told us they received training regarding infection prevention and control and had access to adequate supplies of PPE.

Systems were in place to protect people from the risks associated with poor infection prevention and control techniques. There were policies and procedures for staff to follow and staff received training.

People told us they received their medicines as prescribed. People describe how staff supported independence with this aspect of their care, for example, through prompting and reminding when appropriate so people could manage this task themselves.

Staff told us they had received training in safe administration of medicines. Staff understood the actions they must take if they were concerns about a person’s medicines.

People received their medicines as prescribed. However, a small number of people did not have detailed plans for all medicines which were prescribed on an as-required basis. One person did not have records in place to demonstrate medication which was applied via a patch to the skin was routinely applied to a new area, which was in line with best practice guidelines. Both issues were immediately addressed when raised with the manager.