About the service Home Care Direct is a domiciliary care agency providing the regulated activity of personal care to people living in their own homes. People who used the service choose their own team of staff or employed family members as personal assistants. At the time of our inspection 69 people were using the service. The service supports older people, younger adults, people with a learning disability and people who have mental health needs.
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.
Right Support:
People were protected from the risk of abuse and people told us they felt the service was safe. Risks to people and staff had been assessed and people's care plans were regularly reviewed and updated. Staff were recruited safely and there were sufficient numbers of staff with the necessary training to support people safely and meet their needs. Each person using the service was supported by a small team of personal assistants that had been specifically recruited to support them.
People were 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.
Right Care:
Medicines were managed safely, and we were assured that the provider had sufficient infection, prevention and control measures in place. People received care in a safe and consistent way and people’s care plans detailed information on the monitoring and preventative actions staff were required to take to reduce risks which had been identified.
Right Culture:
People were empowered to make choices and decisions about their care. People were supported to recruit their personal assistants and direct how they received their support. We found people had been involved in creating their care plans which captured the outcomes they wanted to achieve.
The management team understood the importance of monitoring the quality performance of the service and had identified areas for improvement. The manager demonstrated how they used feedback from people and staff, to improve safety and learning across the service.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was good (published 8 November 2018)
Why we inspected
This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about the training and competency of staff. A decision was made for us to inspect and examine those risks. We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this report.
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 remained as good based on the findings of this inspection.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.