Kind Hearts Care & Support Limited

Updated 4 March 2023

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

This inspection was carried out by 1 inspector.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service a short notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 07 February 2023 and ended on 15 February 2023. We visited the location’s office on 07 February 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed the information we had received about the service. We sought feedback from the local authority who work with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used information gathered as part of monitoring activity that took place on 10 October 2022 to help plan the inspection and inform our judgements. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 3 relatives of people who use the service, of their experiences of care. We spoke with 3 members of staff, including the registered manager/nominated individual and care staff. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

We reviewed a range of records, these included 2 people’s care records and multiple medication records. We looked at 2 staff files in relation to recruitment and supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed.

Updated 4 March 2023

About the service

Kind Hearts Care and Support Limited is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people living in their own homes. The service provides support to people living with dementia, older and younger adults, people with learning disabilities and autism and people with physical disabilities. At the time of our inspection there were 17 people using the service.

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.

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

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

At the time of the inspection, the location did not care or support for anyone with a learning disability or an autistic person. However, we assessed the care provision under Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture, as it is registered as a specialist service for this population group.

Right support

The provider had made improvements to the systems in place to manage medicines and assess and monitor identified risks to people. People were supported by staff who recognised and reported on the risk of abuse. People were supported by enough staff who were safely recruited to work in the service. The provider had effective infection prevention and control systems in place.

Right care

People’s needs were assessed and delivered in line with their choices. People were supported by staff who were trained to meet their needs. People were supported to eat, and drink where required. Staff worked with other health and social care agencies to ensure people received consistent and timely care and support to access to healthcare services.

At the time of the inspection no one receiving care lacked capacity to make decision on aspects of their care. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives.

Right culture

The provider had updated their governance systems to ensure they identified areas to make improvements to people’s care. The registered manager and staff shared a positive culture which was person-centred and ensured good outcomes for people receiving care. The registered manager understood their obligation under the duty of candour. People, their relatives and staff were involved and engaged in the service. The provider continued to learn to improve people’s care. The provider worked in partnership with others and lessons were learnt when things went wrong.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 25 January 2020). The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

At our last inspection we recommended that the provider had a robust system in place around staff training. At this inspection we found the provider had made improvements and staff received training to meet people’s needs. Clear records were kept of training staff completed and when courses were due for an update.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service and to follow up on action we told the provider to take at the last inspection.

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this service from 4 December 2019 to 9 December 2019. Breaches of legal requirements were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve safe care and treatment and good governance.

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe, Effective and Well-led which contain those requirements.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Kind Hearts Care and Support on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

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