Archived: Direct Health (Leicester)

Updated 6 May 2016

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection took place on 19 February 2016 and was announced. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that someone would be in.

The inspection team consisted of one inspector and an expert-by-experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. Our expert by experience for this inspection had expertise in services that provide domiciliary care.

Before the inspection we reviewed the provider’s statement of purpose and the notifications we had been sent. A statement of purpose is a document which includes a standard required set of information about a service. Notifications are changes, events or incidents that providers must tell us about.

We used a variety of methods to inspect the service. We spoke with ten people using the service and five relatives. We also spoke with the registered manager, regional trainer, the care co-ordinator and six care workers.

We looked at records relating to all aspects of the service including care, staffing and quality assurance. We also looked in detail at the care records of four people using the service.

Updated 6 May 2016

This inspection took place on 19 February 2016.

Direct Health (Leicester) is a domiciliary care service providing care and support to people living in their own homes. The office is based in Leicester and the service currently provides care and support to people living in Leicester, Leicestershire and Coventry including older people and younger adults with physical disabilities, learning disabilities, and mental health needs. At the time of our inspection there were 100 people using the service.

The service had a registered manager. This 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People using the service and relatives said the staff were caring and treated people with kindness and compassion. Staff valued the people using the service and took an interest in their lives, families, hobbies and interests. This helped them to build up relationships of trust with the people they supported.

People told us they were encouraged to make decisions about their care and support. Staff supported them to be independent and offered them choices at every opportunity. Staff were made aware of people’s specific instructions on how they wanted their personal care given. This helped to ensure that people were supported in a personalised and dignified way.

People told us they felt safe using the service and trusted the staff. Staff were trained in safeguarding (protecting people who use care service from abuse) and knew what to do if they had concerns about the well-being of any of the people using the service. If people were at risk in any areas of their lives staff were aware of this and knew how to help reduce the risk and keep people safe.

The staff team was multicultural reflecting Leicester’s population and some staff members were multilingual, speaking a range of local languages including Gujarati, Punjabi, and French. The service employed both male and female staff so if a person using the service wanted a staff member of a particular gender this could usually be accommodated.

Staff encouraged people to eat healthily. Particular diets, including halal, low cholesterol, and diabetic were catered for. If people needed encouragement to eat staff provided this and assisted people with their hydration, offering them frequent drinks. Staff were knowledgeable about people’s health care needs and knew when to alert health care professionals if they had any concerns.

Staff were safely recruited to help ensure they were suitable to work in a care environment. There were enough staff employed to meet people’s needs. If people needed two staff at a time to assist them they were provided. Staff were trained to administer medicines safely and people said they did this.

Most people using the service and relatives said staff were usually on time and stayed for the time they were supposed to. Some people thought there had been an improvement in staff time-keeping. However a minority of people said there were still issues with the timeliness of calls. The registered manager agreed to address this.

People using the service and relatives said they thought that overall Direct Health (Leicester) provided a good service. They told us they were frequently asked for their views and that staff and management listened to them and acted on what they said. Results of surveys and questionnaires showed that the majority of respondents were satisfied with the service they received.

Since we last inspected there had been a number of positive changes made to the service. These included better staff retention and an improvement to the timeliness of calls. The registered manager and staff had been nominated for The Great British Care Awards (a national celebration of excellence across the care sector) and were attending the finals in May 2016.