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Happy at Home Community Care Services Ltd.

Overall: Requires improvement read more about inspection ratings

Unit 5, Bellman Court, Great Knollys Street, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 7HN (0118) 467 5838

Provided and run by:
Happy at Home Community Care Services Ltd.

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 21 June 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 was carried out by one inspector and an Expert by Experience. 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

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

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we held about the provider including notifications sent to us and information received from the public. We sought feedback from the local authorities who work with the service. We looked at online reviews of the service and the providers website. The provider was not asked to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR) prior to this inspection. A PIR is information providers send us to give some 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 with four staff including the registered manager, a receptionist, an assessor and the nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider. We spoke to 9 people who use the service and 5 relatives. We reviewed a range of records including 5 peoples care plans and medicine administration records. We looked at 4 staff files in relation to recruitment and specific training. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, quality assurance, maintenance and incidents and accidents, including policies and procedures were also reviewed.

Overall inspection

Requires improvement

Updated 21 June 2023

Multi-Care Community Services Reading Ltd is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people. The service provides support to older people, younger adults, people with dementia, a physical disability, learning disability and autistic people. At the time of our inspection there were 129 people using the service.

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.

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’s care plans did not identify and mitigate risks to people. Medicines were not always managed safely. The service supported people to have control and independence over their own lives. Staff supported people to take part in activities and pursue their interests in their local area. Staff supported people to play an active role in maintaining their own health and wellbeing.

Right Care

Staff promoted equality and diversity in their support for people. People received kind and compassionate care. Staff protected and respected people’s privacy and dignity. They understood and responded to people’s individual needs. Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. The service worked well with other agencies to do so. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it. The service had enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe.

Right culture

Staff knew and understood people well and were responsive, supporting their aspirations to live a quality life of their choosing. Staff placed people’s wishes, needs and rights at the heart of everything they did. People and those important to them, were involved in planning their care. Staff evaluated the quality of support provided to people, involving the person and other professionals as appropriate.

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 28 June 2018)

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to the documentation and information held within peoples care plans and risk assessments, and the management of people’s care needs. As a result, 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. The overall rating for the service has changed from good to requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Multi-Care Community Services Reading Ltd on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in relation to medicines management, risk assessments and governance of the service at this inspection. 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.