Hands on Care Homecare Services

Hands on Care Homecare Services is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. 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. The service was supporting 51 people at the time of our inspection of which 19 were supported with their personal care.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

Overall, people who used the service were satisfied with the care and support they received. However, the timing of people’s calls required improvement to ensure they were carried out to meet the person’s care and support needs. The registered manager had already identified this and was actively looking to make improvements.

Staff had access to personal protective equipment (PPE), and used it effectively to reduce risks of cross contamination and infection when delivering personal care.

Quality assurance and service auditing processes identified the strengths of the service as well as areas where improvement was needed. Audits were in place to monitor the effectiveness of the service and actions identified were used to drive improvement.

People were supported to be as independent as possible while taking their prescribed medicines. When staff offered people support, they were competent to do so.

People, and their relatives were involved in their need’s assessment and the development of their care plans. Choices and preferences were documented so staff could deliver person centred care. Overall, people spoke highly of their staff teams, only requesting more consistency to improve their experience. Again this was an area the registered manager was acting to address.

People’s dignity and privacy was respected, and staff told us how they listened to people and delivered care and support in line with their wishes.

Staff felt well supported. They felt listened to and had opportunities to seek advice and support from the registered manager. Overall staff were satisfied with the training they received although some felt it could be timelier and more detailed. The registered manager had identified that training was an area where improvement was required prior to the inspection and was actively looking to address this.

Risks were assessed to reduce or mitigate identified risks. People felt safe and staff told us they continually reviewed risks and reported changes to the office staff.

Staff understood how to safeguard people from the risk of potential harm. People’s complaints were listened to and acted upon. The registered manager was open and transparent and took opportunities to seek feedback about people’s experiences of care provided.

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.

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 16 October 20199 and this is their first inspection.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service and to give the service its first rating.

Follow up

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