About the service Home Care4U Birmingham is a domiciliary care agency supporting people in their own homes. The service currently supports approximately 50 people.
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. The provider’s registration also covered people living in Extra care, however, at the time of the inspection the service was not yet providing this service.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found.
People were positive about the care they received and about the staff supporting them. Many of the staff had worked there a long time and knew people well.
People were supported by staff that understood how to keep them safe and understood the risks to their health. People were assured staff would arrive on time and who had been through recruitment processes that included background checks. People’s care was monitored to that any improvements to their future care could be incorporated.
People’s needs were assessed to ensure their needs could be met by the service. People were supported by staff that had training and supervisions. Staff understood how to share any concerns for a person’s health with the appropriate people and seek help where appropriate.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
People felt staff were caring and understood their needs. People felt able to communicate day to day needs and were treated with dignity and kindness.
People’s care planned around their preferences and needs. People felt able to make changes when necessary. People understood how to complain but had not wished to because they were happy with their care. Staff had received training on End of Life Care and understood how to support people.
People were confident if they contacted the administrative office, someone would look into their query. People told us someone from the administrative office regularly checked with them to ensure they were satisfied with their care. People and staff were encouraged to share feedback. The registered manager was supported by an operations manager and management team to review and update people’s care. However, systems for reviewing people’s experience of care needed to be improved in order to ensure records represented people’s experience of care. Whilst people had a positive experience of care, records were not accurate in their representation of people’s experience.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at the last inspection
The last rating for this service was Good (published on 07 March 2017).
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.