Archived: Ave Maria Care (Edgbaston)

Ave Maria Care (Edgbaston) is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care to people living in their own homes. 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 supported 22 people.

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

Some people had experienced multiple missed care calls or care calls attended by insufficient staff to meet their needs safely. This meant these people’s needs had not been consistently met, and they had been placed at increased risk of avoidable harm. The provider had not followed their safeguarding policy. Safeguarding incidents had not always been reported to the local authority’s safeguarding team or effective actions taken to keep people safe. The provider’s governance systems were not effective, and the information recorded about some people’s care was not accurate, up-to-date or complete. We were told that all care records would be reviewed. We sampled two care records that were person-centred, and the area manager told us all care records would be reviewed.

Staff had not received consistent supervision. Missed care calls meant people’s health needs had not been consistently monitored, and some people had not received consistent support to prepare meals. This did not reflect a caring approach. People and their relatives were not always confident that the provider would act on concerns and complaints. People’s preferences for their care and their interests and aspirations had not been consistently assessed or recorded.

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.

Enough staff were employed to meet people’s needs and prospective staff underwent pre-employment to ensure they were suitable to support people in their own homes. Steps were taken to protect people, their relatives and staff from the risk of infections.

People’s care needs were assessed before their care started. Staff completed induction and training designed to give them the knowledge and skills needed to meet people’s care needs. Staff understood and promoted people’s independence and their right to make their own decisions.

People’s individual communication needs were assessed and taken into consideration. Staff felt supported by the management team. Systems were in place to gather people’s and relatives’ feedback on the service.

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 13 March 2020).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. This included whistle-blowing information received about missed care visits, insufficient numbers of staff attending care calls and falsified entries by staff on the provider’s systems confirming visits as completed.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well Led sections of this full report.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in relation to safe care, protecting people from abuse and the governance of the service.

Please see the 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 work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor the information we receive about the service, which will help inform us when we next inspect.