- Homecare service
Annicare North
Report from 18 October 2024 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Annicare North is a homecare service which provides personal care to people in their own homes. It provides care to children and adults of all ages some of whom may have a learning disability or be living with dementia or a physical disability.
We carried out this assessment as we had identified multiple concerns in our previous inspection, and we needed to check to see if the provider had made improvements. The assessment took place between 2 April 2025 and 13 May 2025. We visited Annicare North on 8 and 9 April 2025. We looked at all the quality statements across the 5 key questions we use to inform our assessments: safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
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 the services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.
The provider was previously in breach of the legal regulations in relation to safeguarding people from abuse, staffing and safe recruitment of staff, safe care and treatment and good governance. Improvements were found at this assessment and the provider was no longer in breach of these regulations. There were enough staff to meet people’s needs, and they were supported with appropriate training. Care was planned with people and reviewed when their needs changed. Care plans reflected people’s needs and ensured their health and well-being were promoted. Staff advocated for people to ensure they received appropriate healthcare.
However, further improvements in medicine management, and ensuring the care for people at risk of developing pressure areas were needed. People were happy staff asked for consent before providing any care, but the provider had not ensured care plans fully documented when decisions to restrict people’s liberty had been made by health and social care professionals.
Audits were in place to monitor the quality of care provided. They had driven the improvements since the last inspection. They ensured systems were in place to provide safe care to people. Following the inspection the provider wrote to us to inform us they were taking immediate action to resolve the concerns found
People's experience of this service
We used an Expert by Experience to speak with people to gather their views of the care they received. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.
People were happy with the quality of care provided. They told us staff were kind and caring and they felt safe with the staff. However, some people felt they would like more continuity of staff, as they saw many different staff. Some people did raise concerns about how the timing of their calls would change from time to time. One person told us, “There have been lots of changes of carers recently and the times have been changed. I wouldn’t mind but they didn’t tell me.”
People had been involved in planning their care and knew what was in their care plans. They told us their care plan was reviewed on a regular basis.
People were happy staff had received training and had the skills needed to provide safe care. They were confident staff would advocate for them and support them to access healthcare if needed. People told us staff asked for consent before providing any care and that they could request what support they needed to support them as their health changed. People knew they could contact the office to raise any concerns they had.