Alina Homecare Specialist Care - Somerset

Alina Homecare Specialist Care - Somerset is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people living in their own homes in the community. It also provides care and support to people living in 'supported living' accommodation, so that they can live in their own home as independently as possible. At the time of the inspection, the service was supporting 18 people with their personal care needs in Somerset and Dorset.

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

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

Improvements were required to staffing, structures and communication to ensure a consistent service which enabled people to fully achieve their aspirations, pursue their interests and access their local community.

The service supported people to have choice, control and independence. Staff supported people with their medicines in a way that promoted positive health outcomes. The service had plans and guidance to support people with identified risks. Staff supported people to make decisions following best practice in decision-making. Staff communicated with people in ways that met their needs.

Right Care

People received kind and supportive care. Staff responded to people’s individual needs. Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it. The service had appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Right culture

The service was working to enable people and those important to them to work with staff to develop the service. Staff valued and acted upon people’s views. Systems were in place to monitor the quality of the service to people. Staff ensured risks of a closed culture were minimised so that people received support based on transparency, respect and inclusivity.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 25 June 2021).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

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 remained good.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Alina Homecare Specialist Care - Somerset on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

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. At the time of the inspection, the service was supporting 12 people with their personal care needs in Dorset and Somerset.

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

People were safe with the care and support of Alina Homecare Specialist Care Somerset. Feedback about the service was positive. Staff received safeguarding training and knew what signs and symptoms to look out for and who to report those concerns to. Everyone was confident any concerns would be addressed immediately and taken seriously.

Medicines were managed safely, and people’s risks had been thoroughly assessed. Infection control procedures were robust and additional measures in place due to the coronavirus pandemic. Information in easy read supported people’s understanding of the restrictions due to COVID-19 such as for social distancing and keeping their home clean. Accidents and incidents were managed and created an opportunity for the service to learn and improve.

There were enough staff and they had the necessary skills, experience and support to do their job. Staff told us they enjoyed their job and felt appreciated. People had access to healthcare when required and the service worked well with health and social care professionals. People were supported to have enough to eat and drink. Specialist advice had been sought where a person needed nutritional support such as difficulty swallowing and weight gain or loss.

People were treated with dignity and respect and were offered choices. 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.

Staff were kind and caring and told us they had real affection for those they support. This was echoed by relatives’ feedback of staff relationships with their loved ones. Staff told us it didn’t feel like they were at work. Promoting independence for people was important to staff and they told us ways they tried to do this.

People had personalised care and support plans which were reviewed regularly or as needed. Access to activities had been affected by the coronavirus pandemic so staff had supported people as best as they could with alternatives within the restrictions. End of life care was not always routinely planned for, but the service had provided that level of care recently and had received compliments for their approach.

People knew how to complain and feedback to the service. Complaints had been handled in line with the service policy. The registered manager and management team understood their responsibilities and job roles. Quality assurance systems operated effectively and were used to continually improve the service. The registered manager knew their responsibility to be open, honest and transparent. Notifications and referrals had been made to all relevant agencies as required.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right Support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.

This service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting the underpinning principles of Right support, right care, right culture. People were at the centre of their care and were supported to make their own decisions, and where this was not possible decisions were made in the persons best interest and involved the person and all relevant people. The service aim was to support people to be as independent as possible.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 1 June 2020 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection.

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.