Archived: Allied Healthcare Alice Bye Court

Allied Healthcare Alice Bye Court is a domiciliary care agency. This service provides care and support to people living in specialist ‘extra care’ housing. Extra care housing is purpose-built or adapted single household accommodation in a shared site or building. Currently, the service provides care and support to 38 people. The accommodation is bought or rented, and is the occupant’s own home. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for extra care housing, this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this service on 13 February 2017. The service was rated as good in all domains and overall good at that inspection. After that inspection we received concerns in relation to people’s safety and poor management of the service. As a result we undertook a focused inspection to look into those concerns. At this inspection we rated the domains of safe and well-led as requiring improvement.

This report only covers our findings in relation to those topics. You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for Allied Healthcare Alice Bye Court on our website at www.cqc.org.uk”

There was not a registered manager running the service. A registered manager 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.

The management team currently running the service were described as supportive and effective. Relevant parties told us that things were improving. However, although the service had an effective system of assessing, reviewing and improving the quality of care provided this had not been followed effectively. Some areas had been identified as requiring improvement but action had not been taken to do so. This breached the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

People were not supported with their medicines as safely as they could be. Medicines were not always recorded accurately. The support people needed with medicines was not clear because care plans did not give staff enough detailed information to ensure they gave the correct medicines at the right times. This breached the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

In most areas people, staff and visitors were protected from harm and were kept as safe as possible. Staff knew how to protect the people in their care and understood what action they need to take if they identified any concerns. General risks and risks to individuals were identified and action was taken to reduce them, as far as possible. People’s needs were, currently, met by sufficient numbers of staff.

We found two breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report

Allied Healthcare Alice Bye Court provides domiciliary care visits and emergency alarm response in an extra-care housing scheme operated by a housing association. A staff team are based on-site 24 hours a day. The service is able to offer support to 52 flats, but currently supports 35 people in 35 flats.

The service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager 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. There is a registered manager running the service.

People and staff were kept as safe as possible form any form of abuse or harm. People were protected by staff who had received the appropriate training and knew how to recognise and deal with any form of abuse or risk of harm. Staff had been recruited as safely as possible and were consequently judged to be suitable to provide people with safe care. People were supported, by trained staff, to take their medicines safely, if necessary. Individual and generic risks were identified and managed to ensure people and staff were as safe as possible when being provided with or providing care.

People’s rights were protected by staff who understood the Mental Capacity Act (2005). The Mental Capacity Act 2005 legislation provides a legal framework that sets out how to act to support people who do not have capacity to make a specific decision. 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.

People were provided with person centred care. Individual’s specific needs were met by a well-trained staff team. People were supported to maintain and regain as much independence as possible. People’s diversity was recognised and they were treated with respect and dignity at all times.

The service was effectively managed by team who were described as approachable, open and supportive. The quality of care offered by the service was monitored and assessed and actions were taken to make necessary improvements.