Archived: Alfa Personnel

Alpha Personnel is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people in their own houses and flats in the community. At the time of inspection one person was receiving support.

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

Governance and performance management systems were not in place. The quality of information in care plans varied and some records we looked at did not include information about individual risks.

Medicines were not managed safely, systems were not in place to ensure people received medicines safely. The provider and the manager had not created strong systems to promote people's safety in terms of the recruitment of suitable staff. Care plans and risk assessments did not detail what care and support people needed to reduce risk to them. Relatives told us they did not always feel their relative was safe.

People were supported to have choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests. However, the policies and systems in the service did not support this practice. Decision specific mental capacity assessments had not been carried out to establish if people had the ability to make informed decisions. Best interest decisions had not been appropriately completed and recorded. The provider had failed to ensure that staff received the appropriate support and training necessary to enable them to carry out the duties they are required to perform.

People’s end of life wishes had not been explored and documented. The service had a complaints procedure and people knew how to complain. However, complaints had not been recorded. Peoples likes, dislikes and communication needs were not recorded in care plans.

People’s views were not always obtained when completing care plans. The service doesn’t always ensure that schedules are organised so that people receive care and support from staff they are familiar with.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection.

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in relation to providing safe care and support to people, recruiting staff that are suitable for the role, obtaining consent from people to receive care and treatment, responding to complaints, providing support, training and supervision and overall governance including notifying CQC of changes and incidents.

Please see 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.

Follow up

We will meet with the provider following this report being published to discuss how they will make changes to ensure they improve their rating to at least good. We will work with the local authority to monitor progress. We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.

Special Measures:

The overall rating for this service is ‘Inadequate’ and the service is therefore in ‘special measures’. This means we will keep the service under review and, if we do not propose to cancel the provider’s registration, we will re-inspect within 6 months to check for significant improvements.

If the provider has not made enough improvement within this timeframe. And there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall rating, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures. This will mean we will begin the process of preventing the provider from operating this service. This will usually lead to cancellation of their registration or to varying the conditions the registration.

For adult social care services, the maximum time for being in special measures will usually be no more than 12 months. If the service has demonstrated improvements when we inspect it. And it is no longer rated as inadequate for any of the five key questions it will no longer be in special measures.