Graceful Care - Wandsworth

Graceful Care - Wandsworth is a domiciliary care agency that provides personal care and support to people living in their own homes and flats.

At the time of our inspection, 75 people were receiving personal care and support. 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

We received mixed feedback about staff timings and attendance to calls. People and their relatives complained about staff punctuality on calls which left them unhappy. The electronic system used to monitor staff attendance on their calls did not always work as intended and office staff had to manually log visits. Despite this, there had not been any missed calls. The registered manager and the provider knew about the problem and told us they were working to resolve the issue.

People were happy with the care and support provided by the service. Comments included, “I feel completely safe and well looked after by them”. “The care is very good and I’m more than happy with it.” And “[Person] is happy with the carers and as safe as can be.”

People’s needs were met. A relative told us, “[Staff] support [person] well.” Staff knew how to identify and report abuse and had received training in safeguarding of vulnerable people. Risk assessments were carried out on people’s health and plans put in place for staff to provide care safely. The provider undertook safe recruitment checks to ensure suitable staff were employed at the service. People received the support they required to take their medicines safely. Staff knew how to minimise the risk of infection when providing care.

People received support to eat and drink healthily. Staff were supported to undertake their roles through induction, training and supervision. Staff involved people in making decisions about their care and support needs.

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 were treated with kindness and respect and their dignity and privacy maintained. Comments included, “They are patient, kind and most of all they actually care about his well-being” and “We get on like a house on fire.” The majority of people told us they received support from a consistent team of staff who knew them well.

People received care in the manner they preferred, and staff respected their choices. People were supported to be as independent as practicable. People and their relatives felt confident to make a complaint if they were unhappy with the care provided.

People using the service and their relatives were complimentary about the management of the service. People were asked to provide feedback about the service. Systems were in place to monitor the quality of care people received.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection:

This service was registered with us on 19 March 2019 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This was the first inspection for the service.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our reinspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.

This was an ‘inspection using remote technology’. This means we did not visit the office location and instead used technology such as electronic file sharing to gather information, and video and phone calls to engage with people using the service as part of this performance review and assessment.