Updated 3 April 2024
Niche Care, Wakefield is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to adults with a range of support needs. This assessment took place on 20 February 2024 and we fed back to the provider on 15 April 2024. At the last inspection the provider was rated requires improvement and at this assessment the rating remains requires improvement. We assessed a total of 6 quality statements from the safe, caring, responsive and well-led key questions. The scores for these areas have been combined with scores based on the key question ratings from the last inspection. The assessment of these 6 quality statements indicated some continued areas of concern, our overall rating therefore remains requires improvement. At our last inspection we found a breach of the legal regulation relating to good governance as quality management systems were not effective. At this inspection we found continued concerns around quality management systems and a new breach of the legal regulation relating to providing safe care and treatment as risks were not adequately assessed, monitored and reviewed. We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment. Some people reported dissatisfaction with their call times, although we saw this had recently improved. People told us they felt safe and well supported by staff who they said were caring, although some people expressed their preferred gender of worker was not always provided. The provider needed to seek support from reputable sources regarding inequalities in health and social care and use this to help assess and plan with people around their care needs. Staff received suitable training for their roles and said the support from the management team was helpful to them. We looked at the recruitment of staff and saw relevant background checks were made before staff commenced working.