Archived: Allied Healthcare Sutton Coldfield

We served warning notices against the provider in relation to the breaches of regulations 12 and 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. We asked them to send us an action plan to show how they would meet the legal requirements of the regulations and gave them three months to demonstrate their compliance. We undertook a focused inspection in March 2016 to check the provider had followed their plan and monitored their compliance with the legal requirements of the regulations. We found that improvements had been made which meant that the provider had met the requirements of the Warning notices and were compliant with the legal requirements of the regulations.

This inspection was carried out to check that the improvements made had been sustained and that the provider continued to meet the requirements of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

Allied Health Care Sutton Coldfield is a Domiciliary Care Service which is registered to provide personal care to people in their homes. We were told that since our last inspection in December 2015 the Solihull and Birmingham branches had merged in to the Sutton Coldfield branch and all services were now being run from this location. However, the provider was due to cease contracts with the local authority in Solihull. At the time of our inspection Allied Health Care Sutton Coldfield was providing care and support to 85 people.

Allied Health Care Sutton Coldfield is required to have a register manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have a legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. A registered manager was in post at the time of our inspection.

People were supported by enough members of staff who had the knowledge and skills they required to care for people safely and effectively. This included the safe management of medicines so that people received their medicines as prescribed. The provider had continued to recruit new staff and improvements had been made to the deployment of staff to ensure home care calls were covered reliably.

People were protected from the risk of abuse and avoidable harm because staff received training and understood the different types of abuse and knew what actions were needed to keep people safe. The provider had also ensured effective systems were in place to report and investigate any concerns raised, which included working collaboratively with external agencies.

People were supported by staff that were kind, caring and respectful. People were encouraged to be as independent as possible and were supported to have food that they enjoyed.

Most people knew how to complain if they were unhappy and improvements had been made so that people were now more confident that their concerns would be responded to.

The provider had some management systems in place to assess and monitor the quality of the service provided to people. However, changes within the leadership structure meant that these had not always identified some of the shortfalls we found within the inspection. The registered manager was open and honest in their communication with us and recognised that further improvements were required in this area.

We asked the provider to send us an action plan to show how they would meet the legal requirements of the regulations and gave them three months to demonstrate their compliance.

We undertook this focused inspection on 24 March 2016 to check the provider had followed their plan and to monitor their compliance with the legal requirements of the regulations. This report only covers our findings in relation to those requirements. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Allied Healthcare Sutton Coldfield on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Allied Health Care Sutton Coldfield is a Domiciliary Care Service which is registered to provide personal care to people in their homes. At the time of our inspection the provider was providing care and support to 138 people from this location.

The provider is required to have a register manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have a legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. We found that there had been a change in the registered manager since our last inspection and there was a new registered manager in post at the time of our inspection.

We found that the service had made extensive improvements to their safety and quality monitoring and management processes since our last inspection and there had been a significant reduction in the number of missed or late calls.

We also found that improvements had been made to the record keeping systems and information was provided much more efficiently.

Staff felt more supported in their work with evidence of improved communication between staff and the management team.

We will review our rating for this service at our next comprehensive inspection to make sure the improvements made continue to be implemented and embedded in to practice.

Allied Health Care Sutton Coldfield is a Domiciliary Care Service which is registered to provide personal care to people in their homes. We were told that since our last inspection the Solihull and Birmingham branches had merged in to the Sutton Coldfield branch and all services were now being run from this location. At the time of our inspection Allied Health Care Sutton Coldfield was providing care and support to 136 people.

Allied Health Care Sutton Coldfield is required to have a register manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have a legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. A registered manager was in post at the time of our inspection.

People were not always protected from the risk of harm because there was not always enough staff to cover home care calls. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.

People were protected from the risk of abuse because the provider had effective systems in place

Staff received training so that they understood the different types of abuse and what actions were needed to keep people safe.

People were supported to receive their medication as prescribed.

People were supported by staff that had received the training and support they needed from colleagues so that they could carry out their role effectively.

People’s human rights were protected because they consented to the care they received. Staffs were caring, kind and respectful.

People were supported to have food that they enjoyed and that helped them to remain healthy.

People were encouraged to be as independent as possible.

People were included in the planning and review of their care and their views about the service were sought.

People knew how to complain if they were unhappy and were confident that their concerns would be responded to.

The provider had some management systems in place to assess and monitor the quality of the service provided to people. However, some of these were not always used effectively to manage risk and identify where improvements were needed.

Inconsistency within the management of the service meant some staff did not always feel well informed of changes.

We found that people were treated with respect and dignity. One relative told us, 'All the care staff treat my family member with dignity. They are also respectful and call them by their preferred name."

We found that people had an initial assessment of their needs and that this had been put into a detailed support plan. We saw that risks to people had been assessed. One staff member told us, "The support plans are good. We have all the information we need about people to meet their needs.

We found that processes were in place to protect people from the risk of harm or abuse. One relative told us, 'I am happy with my family member's care and feel that they are safe with staff visiting their home. I have no concerns.'

We saw that the provider had an effective recruitment and selection process in place. We found that pre-employment checks were completed on staff to make sure that they were safe to work with vulnerable people.

We found that effective systems to monitor the quality of the services provided so that actions, when needed, could be made to make improvements were in place.

The provider ensured that people were given plenty of opportunities to be involved in the support they required. The care and welfare needs of people were met and regularly reviewed to ensure they still met people's needs. One person said of the care staff, 'They ask all the time if there is anything else I need.'

People who use the service were protected from the risk of abuse, because the provider had taken reasonable steps to identify the possibility of abuse and prevent abuse from happening. One relative told us, 'The staff are lovely and I trust them with my relative.'

People were cared for in the majority of cases by staff they had met before.

The provider had systems in place to ensure that they monitored the effectiveness of their service and responded to any concerns which could have a negative impact on the service.