Archived: Homecare4U Cheshire

People made mixed comments about the staff and the care and support they provided. One person told us; 'They are not always on time, but that doesn't really affect me too much.' Another said; 'On the whole I would say we do pretty well with them.'

We had received 'Whistle blowing' information from a person stating that they used to work for the provider and that employing and using staff without proper checks was commonplace.

The operations manager was unable to tell us which of his staff were trained in which skills, he agreed this was unacceptable.

We had already established that no reviews of care plans had taken place for several months and we had been told that no system or policy was currently in place for reviewing people's care needs.

We asked staff about how they would deal with complaints. It was clear they were unsure what to class as a complaint or how to deal with them.

The staff we spoke with said they enjoyed working for the service, it was managed well and they were supported by the managers. They told us they had received induction and training for their role and they 'shadowed' senior staff before they started looking after people.

The care records we looked at were based on assessments of the needs of the people receiving the service, comprehensive and well ordered. Daily records were also detailed, complete and showed care was being delivered in line with the individual's plan.

However we found that appropriate checks had not been undertaken before staff commenced employment and not all staff had received training in areas such as medication, safeguarding and health and safety. This meant there was a risk people were being supported by staff who were not suitably trained and without the necessary checks to ensure they were suitable to work with vulnerable adults.