About the service Quality Home Care UK Ltd is a domiciliary care agency. They provide personal care support to people living in their own homes. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of the inspection, the service was supporting 27 people with personal care.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
We found there was not always staff guidance in place for the use of ‘as needed’ medicines. There was also no guidance in place for where to apply creams to people. While staff had good knowledge, this record keeping concern meant staff did not always have written guidance to support them. Otherwise, medicines were managed safely.
People were not always supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives. This is because assessments had not been made on their ability to make decisions. The systems in the service did not support this practice.
People felt safe using the service. Staff were aware of how to keep people safe and had received thorough training. A clear governance system ensured that incidents that were responded to appropriately. There were enough staff to support people, and these staff followed safe infection control procedures.
Records were kept on people’s physical, mental and social needs. These followed expected standards and provided sufficient guidance to staff. This enabled people to receive safe care that followed their preferences. People reported being able to feedback into their care planning and make suggestions or complaints.
People were supported to eat meals of their choice. Where people required external health and social care support, then staff recorded recommendations and followed them.
People reported receiving a high-quality service, from staff that were caring in their approach. This caring ethos resulted in person centred care that met people’s needs. Where concerns were raised during inspection, the registered manager was quick to try to resolve them. We found the service was well led.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was Good (published 15 November 2016).
Why we inspected
This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.