East Lancashire Home Care Limited

Updated 24 November 2018

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 5 November 2018 and was announced.

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is a domiciliary care agency and the registered manager and management team are often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.

This inspection was conducted by one adult social care inspector.

In preparation for the inspection, we reviewed the information we held about the service such as notifications, complaints and safeguarding information. We obtained the views of the local authority safeguarding and contract monitoring team and local commissioning teams. We also contacted Healthwatch to see if they had any feedback. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England.

Before the inspection, the provider completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form the provider completes to give some key information about the home, what the home does well and improvements they plan to make. The provider returned the PIR within the agreed timeframe and we took the information provided into account when we made the judgements in this report.

We reviewed a range of records about people’s care and the way the service was managed. These included the care records for three people, medicine administration records, staff training records, three staff recruitment files, staff supervision and appraisal records, minutes from meetings and records relating to the management of the service.

We also spoke with the registered manager, care co-ordinator and two care staff. On the 8 November 2018 we made phone calls to two people who used the service. However, only one was available to speak with us.

Updated 24 November 2018

Home Instead East Lancashire is a domiciliary care service. This service provided care and support to people so that they could live in their own home as independently as possible. There was 19 people using the service on the day of our inspection.

This inspection took place on the 05 November 2018 and was announced.

At our last inspection we rated the service good. At this inspection we found the evidence continued to support the rating of good and there was no evidence or information from our inspection and ongoing monitoring that demonstrated serious risks or concerns. This inspection report is written in a shorter format because our overall rating of the service has not changed since our last inspection.

People who used the service told us they felt safe. Staff had undertaken training in safeguarding and knew their responsibilities to report any concerns. Safeguarding and whistleblowing [reporting poor practice] policies and procedures were in place and accessible to staff.

Risks to people’s health and wellbeing had been assessed and risk assessments put in place to keep them safe. These were reviewed to ensure they remained current.

The service had a recruitment policy and procedure in place. Robust recruitment processes were followed by the registered manager.

Not everyone required support with their medicines. However, we found for those people who did require support, their medicines were managed safely by the service. Only staff who had undertaken medicines training were able to support people with their medicines.

The service had an infection control policy and procedure in place. Staff had received training and understood their responsibilities.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice. The registered manager had a good understanding of the Mental Capacity Act and associated applications before the Court of Protection.

Staff we spoke with told us and records we looked at confirmed that staff received an induction when they commenced employment. We saw staff had access to training courses which met the needs of people using the service.

We did not have the opportunity to observe staff interactions, however, the staff we spoke with spoke about their role and the people they were supporting with compassion, respect and sensitivity.

Staff we spoke with were aware of the need to ensure people’s privacy and dignity was respected at all times. Those staff we spoke with were able to give us examples of how they promoted people’s privacy and dignity.

We saw people had person centred support plans in place which they had been involved in. These were in-depth and covered many aspects of the person’s life. People had signed to confirm they were involved in this process.

We have made a recommendation that the service considers current best practice around end of life, such as enhanced training and care planning.

All the staff we spoke with were very complimentary about the registered manager and office staff. They spoke of feeling well supported in their roles and their being an ‘open door’ culture within the service.

There were monitoring systems that ensured that responsibilities were clear and that quality performance, risks and regulatory requirements were understood and managed. People who used the service, staff and others were consulted on their experiences and shaping future developments.

The service was meeting all relevant fundamental standards.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.