Umbrella House provides personal care for children and young people living in their own homes. On the day the inspection the registered manager informed us that there were 18 children and young people receiving a service from the agency. A registered manager was in place. 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 legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
Relatives we spoke with said they thought the agency ensured that their children received safe personal care. Staff had been trained in safeguarding (protecting people from abuse) and understood their responsibilities in this area.
Risk assessments helped staff to understand how to support children safely.
We saw that medicines were given safely and on time, to protect children's health needs.
Staff had been safety recruited to help ensure they were appropriate to work with the children who received personal care from the service.
Staff had training to ensure they had the skills and knowledge to be able to meet children's needs, though more specialist awareness of children's individual needs was not fully in place, which could have a potential impact on meeting children's needs.
Staff understood their responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) to allow, as much as possible, children to have effective choice about how they lived their lives.
Relatives told us that children had been assisted to eat and drink and everyone told us they thought the food prepared by staff was satisfactory.
Staff had awareness of children's health care needs so they were in a position to refer to health care professionals if needed.
Relatives we spoke with told us they and their children liked the staff and got on very well with them, and we were told of many examples of staff working with children and their families in a friendly, encouraging and caring way.
Children and their relatives, were involved in making decisions about how personal care was to be provided.
Care plans were individual to the children using the service, which covered their health and social care needs.
Relatives told us they would tell staff or management if they had any concerns and were confident any issues would be followed up.
Relatives and staff were satisfied with how the agency was run by the registered manager.
Management carried out audits and checks to ensure the agency was running properly. However, audits did not include the checking of all issues needed to provide a quality service.