31 March 2023
During an inspection looking at part of the service
ApproCare is an independent domiciliary care agency which provides personal care and support for adults in their own homes. People receiving care and support had a range of needs including, older people, people living with dementia, people with poor mental health, people who misuses alcohol and or drugs, people with eating disorders, people with a physical or sensory disability and people who have a learning disability and or autism.
At the time of the inspection the service was not supporting people who misuses alcohol and/or drugs or people with eating disorders.
The agency provides care for people in the local Isle of Sheppey area and Sittingbourne. At the time of our inspection, they were supporting 59 who received support with personal care tasks
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: Peoples needs were not always identified and recorded. Staff supported people to play an active role in maintaining their own health and well being. Staff supported people with their medicines in a way that promoted their independence.
Right Care: People’s care, treatment and support plans did not always reflect their range of needs. Staff knew how to protect people from poor care and abuse. Some people told us they received kind and compassionate care. Staff protected and respected people’s privacy and dignity.
Right Culture: Staff turnover was high, which meant some people did not always receive consistent care from staff who knew them well. There were not effective systems and processes in place to ensure the quality and safety of services. Some staff did not feel valued but all staff we spoke with told us they believed their work was important and they enjoyed caring for people.
The last rating for this service was good (Report published 28 March 2019).
Why we inspected
The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about staffing and organisational culture. A decision was made for us to inspect and examine those risks. We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only. Based on our inspection of safe and well led we found the service required improvement.
You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full 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 changed from good to requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection. We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and well led sections of this full report.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for ApproCare on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Enforcement
We have identified breaches in relation to the number of trained staff available to provide care, the assessment of people’s needs, how this is communicated to people, how risks to them are identified, shared and addressed. We also found poor governance systems and processes for the service.
Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.
Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to the more serious concerns found during inspections is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded.