Newcross Healthcare Solutions Limited - Southwest

Newcross Healthcare Solutions Plymouth (hereafter referred to as Newcross) is a service providing support to adults, children and young people living in their own homes. It was providing personal care as part of a wider support package to nine people at the time of our inspection, but also provided enabling support to a further 19 people. Newcross specialises in supporting people with complex health needs.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects those parts of the service where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene, medicines, and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People and relatives said care was safe. People were supported by staff who had been competency tested in medicines and care procedures. There were enough staff to meet people’s needs and people were supported by regular staff members.

Staff training was detailed and specialised. Staff felt supported and were provided with regular one to one meetings and clinical review meetings. Clinical supervision was provided for the nurse clinical leads.

People said staff were caring and they were treated with dignity and respect. People were involved in the planning of their care and felt listened to by staff. Staff put people first.

People’s care was delivered in line with their preferences. Care plans were person-centred. People were empowered and supported to be as active a part of their local community as they wished. Complaints were investigated in line with the service’s policy and people and relatives felt happy to complain.

There was an established quality assurance system and audits picked up issues and followed them up. Staff said they could approach the registered manager and clinical leads and were listened to.

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.

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

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 10 July 2018). The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. It provides a service to people of all ages with complex health needs.

Not everyone using the service receives a regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided. At the time of the inspection, the service was providing personal care t0 12 people.

At the last inspection, the service was rated Good. At this inspection we found the service required improvement.

People and their relatives were involved in developing people’s care plans which helped ensure staff understood people’s needs. However, care plans did not always reflect people’s preferences for how their care and support was provided, the routines they liked to follow or their wishes and aspirations. People received support from a staff team who knew them well but may not have acted consistently with the person’s wishes, as these were not always clear.

Information collected by the registered manager and provider, such as feedback from people and relatives, complaints and incidents was analysed to help ensure the service and the organisation could learn from them. However there was not a clear plan to ensure people’s records, such as care plans and risk assessments were regularly monitored. This meant gaps in quality found during the inspection had not been previously identified.

People told us they felt safe using the service. Information was available to staff about people’s risks and how to mitigate them but this was not always in the form of a risk assessment. One person who sometimes experienced anxiety told us staff knew how to support them at this time; however information about what caused them anxiety, how staff could recognise they were feeling anxious and how to reassure them, was not detailed in their care plan.

Staff had received training in how to recognise and report abuse and were confident any allegations would be taken seriously. There were sufficient numbers of suitably qualified staff to meet the needs of people who used the service. The recruitment process of new staff was robust. People and staff were matched carefully and staff training was designed around people’s individual needs. Staff treated people as individuals and respected their diverse needs.

Staff were required to comply with the provider’s expectations regarding equality and diversity. Staff approach was regularly monitored by senior staff. Staff told us they felt supported by the registered manager and could easily request support or advice.

People and their relatives spoke highly of the staff and the support provided. Staff spoke about people with compassion and were keen to ensure people were in control of their own care. This included tailoring leisure activities to meet their wishes. Staff shared information with each other and external professionals, where appropriate to help ensure people’s needs were met.

We found a breach of regulation. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.