13 October 2022
During a routine inspection
Ohio Home Care Limited is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to younger disabled adults, older people, including people living with dementia. 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.
At the time of the inspection 80 people were receiving personal care.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
We received mixed feedback from people and their relatives about the care and support they received, which showed levels of care and communication was not always consistent across the service.
The majority of feedback was positive about the kind and caring attitude of staff and people and their relatives felt their regular staff knew them well and had developed positive working relationships.
However, issues were raised related to timekeeping and how the management dealt with concerns and complaints. There were inconsistencies with the effectiveness of communication with the management team.
Whilst risks to people's safety were assessed, control measures and guidance for staff to follow to manage these risks were not always recorded to highlight how people could be supported safely. After discussions with the provider, the relevant information was sent to us after the inspection.
There were some inconsistencies with the information recorded in people’s daily logs which meant important details and information related to care and support had not always been recorded.
People were supported by staff who enjoyed working for the company and spoke positively about their working environment and the support they received.
There were monitoring and auditing systems in place to identify any issues with the quality of the service.
The provider told us that the COVID-19 pandemic had brought about a range of challenges within the health and social sector, including the recruitment and retention of staff, especially within the current cost of living crisis. They acknowledged where improvements needed to be made.
Despite attempting contact with a large number of the care staff, we only heard back from a small sample, which was not fully representative of a service of this size with 50 active care staff. The provider told us this had been a challenge and had encouraged staff to engage with us as part of the inspection process.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible. The policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people. We considered this guidance as there was one person using the service who has a learning disability and/or who are autistic.
We have made two recommendations about care planning and risk management records and the management of complaints.
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 24 August 2019).
Why we inspected
This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.
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.