16 February 2022
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Always Here Limited is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to older people, younger adults and people living with dementia, sensory impairment or physical disability. The service was supporting 27 people at the time of our inspection.
Not everyone who used the service received personal care. The Care Quality Commission (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.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People were at risk due to poor governance and record keeping at the service. The provider did not understand regulatory requirements and had not met these. Their quality assurance systems were not effective or robust in identifying shortfalls. Staff were committed to providing good quality care and had started to make improvements following our inspection.
People were at risk of harm as risks to their safety and medicines were not always managed effectively. We could not be sure that people had received their medicines as prescribed.
People were supported by staff that had not always received the necessary training and competency checks to enable them to perform their role. Despite this, people and their relatives felt safe with staff and told us they received support from regular staff that were familiar with their needs.
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 13 June 2018).
Why we inspected
We received concerns in relation the management of the service. 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.
We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report. 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 Always Here Limited on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Enforcement and Recommendations
We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection. We will continue to monitor the service and will take further action if needed.
We have identified breaches in relation to safe care and treatment, good governance, staffing, fit and proper persons employed and statutory notifications 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.