Essential Health Limited

Updated 30 March 2019

The inspection:

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team:

One inspector and an expert by experience of supporting an older person completed this inspection. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type:

Essential Health is a domiciliary care service providing support and personal care to people in their own homes.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection:

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small and needed to be sure that there would be somebody in the office when we called.

The inspection activity started on 8 March 2019 and ended 20 March 2019. We visited the office location on 8 and 9 March 2019.

What we did:

Our planning considered information we held about the service. This included information about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as abuse; and we looked at issues raised in complaints and how the service responded to them. We contacted the local authority to request some feedback on the service. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection, we spoke with 11 people and their relatives over the phone. We also spoke with the registered manager, the nominated individual, two care co-ordinators and a healthcare support worker at the office. Following the visit to the office we spoke with a further four members of staff over the phone. We also received written feedback from three professionals involved in people’s care. We looked at four people’s care records and a selection of other records including quality monitoring records, recruitment and training records and accident and incident records.

Updated 30 March 2019

About the service: Essential Health Limited is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care to people who live in their own homes. The service specialises in supporting older people living with age related conditions. Not everyone who used the agency was receiving support with their personal care. At the time of the inspection the service was providing personal care to 31 people.

People’s experience of using this service:

People received a consistently good service that was safe and effective. Staff were kind and caring, knew people well and had a good understanding of their personalities as well as their health and social care needs.

People, their relatives and care managers had been fully involved in the assessment and planning of their care before they started using the service. A care plan had been developed with each person detailing their likes, dislikes, preferences and care needs.

Consent had been sought before any care had been delivered in line with legal requirements and people were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives.

Staff treated people and their relatives with kindness, dignity and respect. People’s privacy was protected and confidential information was stored securely. People were supported and encouraged to remain independent and do as much as possible for themselves.

Steps had been taken to make sure people were safe. Risks to people had been assessed and minimised in the least restrictive way. Staff had access to protective clothing such as gloves and aprons and had completed training in infection control.

Each person had their own team of safely recruited and trained staff who had a good understanding of their needs. Staff felt supported by the registered manager and had completed the training they needed to meet people’s assessed needs. Management and staff worked in collaboration with other stakeholders such as health and social care professionals and people’s relatives.

A complaints procedure was in place for people to follow.

The service met characteristics of Good in all areas more information is in the full report.

Rating at last inspection: Good (report published 20 May 2016).

Why we inspected: We inspected the service as part of our inspection schedule methodology for ‘Good’ rated services.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.