16 February 2023
During a routine inspection
Your Dignified Care Limited is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people with health and social care needs 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. At the time of our inspection there were 14 people who received personal care using the service.
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 were people using the service who have a learning disability and or who are autistic.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Right Support:
People's independence was promoted where possible by the staff. There were sufficient staff deployed to meet people's needs and wishes. However, due to staff shortages across the health and social care sector the registered manager was also delivering hands on care at various times.
People were not always fully protected from risks associated with their care and support. The registered manager acknowledged the service was in the process of implementing improvements as the service had started to grow and had identified areas for improvement before we started our inspection. However, at the time of our inspection systems had still to be implemented.
People were mostly 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. However, records relating to capacity needed improving and we have made a recommendation about this. Staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests;
Right Care:
People had unique needs and staff knew people and understood risks to people. Staff provided kind, caring, person-centred care and support. Staff communicated with people in ways that met their needs. People's needs were assessed and developed into a support plan. Further work was underway to ensure support plans contained detailed information to enable people to receive appropriate care and support that was responsive to their needs.
People received person-centred care that promoted their dignity, privacy and human rights. Staff recognised and responded to changes to individual's needs. People told us they were treated with kindness and patience.
Right Culture:
Governance arrangements were not as effective or reliable as they should be. Further improvement was needed in the quality assurance processes to identify shortfalls and to drive improvement. Support plans and risk assessments relating to people's health needs were completed but needed more person-centred information to help protect the health and welfare of people who used the service. Relatives and staff gave us positive feedback about the culture at the service.
Staff feedback on working in partnership with the registered manager was positive. Staff reported they felt Your Dignified Care Limited was a supportive company to work for, particularly in life work balance.
This service was registered with us on 29 May 2022 and this is the first inspection.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Why we inspected
This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.
Enforcement and Recommendations
We have identified a breach in relation to governance and oversight at this inspection.
Recommendations
We have made recommendations about the review of records relating to capacity and the timely submission of notifications.
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.