All inspections: Stokely Healthcare Ltd

Date of Assessment: 5th to 21st November 2024. The service is a care at home service providing support to adults of all ages living with dementia, mental health conditions, physical disabilities, learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder. People were supported with their personal care needs to enable them to live in their own homes and promote their independence. At the time of the inspection the service supported 32 people with personal care. This included 3 people with a learning disability. We have assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. At our last inspection the service was in breach of regulations regarding staff training and governance. The service had made improvements and is no longer in breach of regulations. Managers now made sure staff received the training they required to carry out their roles and the provider had effective quality monitoring systems in place to identify and drive improvements. The service had a good learning culture and people could raise concerns. People were protected and kept safe. Staff understood and managed risks. Staff managed medicines well. Staff worked with all agencies involved in people’s care for the best outcomes. They monitored people’s health to support healthy living. Staff made sure people understood their care and treatment to enable them to give informed consent. Staff involved those important to people took decisions in people’s best interests where they did not have capacity. People were treated with kindness and compassion. People were involved in decisions about their care. Leaders and staff had a shared vision and culture based on listening, learning and trust. Staff felt supported to give feedback and were treated equally.

About the service

Stokely Healthcare Ltd provides personal care and support to people living in their own homes. The service is also registered to provide nursing care. They provide a service to older people and younger adults who may have a range of needs arising from dementia, learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder, mental health, and physical disability. Some people using the service received 24 hour support.

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 our inspection 20 people were receiving the regulated activity personal care. This included 2 people with a learning disability.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

People were mostly supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives. Staff did not always support 1 person in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did not always support this practice. An appropriate application had not been made to the Court of Protection for this person.

Recruitment procedures were not always robust, and improvements were needed to ensure staff received training and appropriate assessments of their competence to fulfil their role.

The provider had not operated effective systems and processes to assess, monitor and improve the quality and safety of the services. The provider's audits were not always effective in identifying the issues we found.

We discussed these concerns with the nominated individual and registered manager who were responsive to feedback and started making changes to improve the service.

People’s care needs were assessed before their care package started. People and relatives told us they were happy with the care provided by staff and told us they felt involved in planning and organising the care.

People were protected from the risk of abuse because staff knew the action to take should they suspect or witness abuse.

The support people received was person centred. People told us they received kind and compassionate care. Staff protected and respected people’s privacy and dignity. They understood and responded to their individual needs.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 4 January 2022 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the date of registration.

Enforcement and Recommendations

We have identified breaches in relation to staff training and governance. We have also made recommendations in relation to recruitment and consent.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

Stokely Healthcare Ltd

All Inspections

During an assessment under our new approach

9 March 2023

During a routine inspection