Helping Hand

Updated 21 November 2023

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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection team consisted of 1 inspector.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

Notice of inspection

The inspection was announced. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed the information we held about the service, including the last inspection report. We contacted Healthwatch for feedback about the service. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. We used the information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke on the telephone with 2 people and 3 relatives to gain their feedback about the care and support provided. We also visited 1 person at home. We spoke with the manager, provider, the care coordinator and 3 homecare assistants.

We reviewed a range of records, including 3 people's care records and 4 people’s medicines records. We reviewed staff training records and 2 staff recruitment files. We also looked at a variety of records related to the management of the service, including policies and audits.

Updated 21 November 2023

About the service

Helping Hand is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. The service provides support to older people, younger adults, people with a physical disability, sensory impairment, learning disability or autistic spectrum disorder, mental health support needs and people living with dementia. At the time of our inspection there were 19 people using the service.

People’s experience of the service and what we found:

At the time of the inspection, the location did not care or support for anyone with a learning disability or an autistic person. However, we assessed the care provision under Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture, as it is registered as a specialist service for this population group.

Right Support

People were provided with high quality care which achieved good outcomes for them. Staff followed safe infection prevention and control practices and supported people to manage their medicines safely. People were supported to stay safe in their home environment and staff helped them manage their health needs, including referring to community agencies when people needed additional support.

Right Care

People were supported in a way which reflected their individual needs. Staff knew people’s needs, risks and preferences well. People were supported by staff who had been recruited safely. Staff had completed training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew the action to take to keep people safe.

Right Culture

The culture at the service promoted high, quality person-centred care. People and relatives were involved in the development of the service and were regularly asked for their feedback about the care provided. The provider ensured staff were clear about their roles and responsibilities, through regular training, observations and supervision. Staff told us they felt well supported and could raise concerns or make suggestions. The provider monitored the care provided, to ensure appropriate standards of quality and safety were maintained.

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 the service was Good (published 3 January 2018).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only. For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Helping Hand at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow Up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.