Future Home Care Ltd Kent

On this page

• Overview
• Learning culture
• Safe systems, pathways and transitions
• Safeguarding
• Involving people to manage risks
• Safe environments
• Safe and effective staffing
• Infection prevention and control
• Medicines optimisation

Safe – this means we looked for evidence that people were protected from abuse and avoidable harm. This is the first assessment for this newly registered service, since the provider

changed legal entities. This key question has been rated Good.This meant people were safe and protected from avoidable harm.

This service scored 72 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The provider had a proactive and positive culture of safety, based on openness and honesty. Staff listened to concerns about safety and investigated and reported safety events. Lessons were learnt to continually identify and embed good practice.

The registered manager encouraged a culture of being open and honest. They encouraged staff to report all incidents and implemented learning from incidents fostering a culture of improvement. The registered manager told us, “We have done a lot of work on reporting of incidents. I wasn’t seeing as many incidents as I was expecting to see. That has increased.”

When incidents did occur, leaders and staff took the opportunity to learn and improve. Lessons learnt were shared across all staff teams, which had a positive impact on people. One person had previously had a number of incidents where they would self-harm. Staff told us that through learning and talking to the person this had not occurred in over a year. The person told us they were ‘proud’ of themselves. Staff told us, “I’m so proud of him and what he has achieved. I tell him all the time how proud I am of him.”

The provider worked with people and healthcare partners to establish and maintain safe systems of care, in which safety was managed or monitored. They made sure there was continuity of care, including when people moved between different services.

The registered manager ensured people received consistent support. Care and support is planned and organised with people, together with partners and communities in ways that ensure continuity. The views of people who use services, partners and staff are listened to and taken into account. A relative told us, “They definitely listen to her voice. She has a lot of input into her care.”

The provider worked with people and healthcare partners to understand what being safe meant to them and the best way to achieve that. Staff concentrated on improving people’s lives while protecting their right to live in safety, free from bullying, harassment, abuse, discrimination, avoidable harm and neglect. The provider shared concerns quickly and appropriately.

There were systems in place to ensure that when safeguarding concerns were identified, they were reported and acted on appropriately. The registered manager had a log which included all safeguarding incidents, with actions taken to learn and address risk. Following a concern a healthcare professional fed back, “I am confident that you and the home (service user name) currently resides in have done everything you can to ensure that such incident does not happen again.”

Staff told us that people were supported to live without restrictions. For example, one person had a number of restrictions in place, including access to food and parts of their home. Staff worked with the person to remove these barriers. With the positive support of staff, this person did not need the restrictions previously in place. People and their relatives told us they felt they were safe and well cared for.
 

Some people lived with complex health conditions including epilepsy, diabetes, physical disabilities and constipation. Staff we spoke with understood how best to support people safely and had received training and support in areas including epilepsy, diabetes and moving and handling. However, the provider had moved to a new care planning system, and we found that care plans were not sufficiently detailed to inform staff on actions to take should a person become unwell. For example, a care plan for a person living with diabetes did not provide sufficient guidance on how staff should support the person if their blood sugar levels became too high.

Some people lived with constipation, and whilst we found that when they did not open their bowels action was taken to address this, care plans and risk assessments were either not in place or not sufficiently detailed to inform staff on actions to take to support the person.

People were supported by temporary , and newly employed staff, and therefore it is important that they had access to sufficiently detailed guidance to inform them when and what action to take if someone became unwell. We discussed concerns with the care plans not being sufficiently detailed with the registered manager. The registered manager told us they would review all care plans, starting with the highest risks to ensure that guidance for staff was specific and sufficiently detailed.

The provider detected and controlled potential risks in the care environment. They made sure equipment, facilities and technology supported the delivery of safe care.

Staff were aware of risks to people and took steps to mitigate these. For example, when people had showers and baths staff checked water temperatures to ensure they were not too hot for people. Staff ensured that equipment such as hoists were checked to ensure they were safe to be used.

The provider made sure there were enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff, who received effective support, supervision and development. They worked together well to provide safe care that met people’s individual needs.

Staff showed a good level of understanding how to support people safely. Staff had received training in specialist areas including supporting people with their PEG (which is a method of providing nutrition direct into the stomach by tube), epilepsy and diabetes care. A healthcare professional told us, “I also visit the home to carry out trainings regularly for staff which include the use of the residents’ feeding tubes and feeding pump which as I can see when I visit the residents they are being used correctly.” Staff told us, “Yearly training for the PEG. It’s really good training you get to see all angles.” A relative told us, “The carers are amazing there.”

Staff and relatives told us there were sufficient staff to keep people safe. In some areas, agency or temporary staff were used, when there were vacancies. When this was the case, staff told us that they worked with the agency staff to support their knowledge of the person they were supporting. Staff told us, “If there is agency staff, then two of us would always support with personal care. You wouldn’t want to just be supported by someone you don’t know, so its important we are there to re-assure them.” Relatives told us, “I'm really happy with the level of care my [loved one] receives,” and “There's always enough staff there.”

The provider followed safe recruitment processes to ensure staff were safe to work with people. This included requesting and receiving references and checks with the disclosure and barring service (DBS). DBS checks are carried out to confirm whether prospective new staff had a criminal record or were barred from working with people.

The provider assessed and managed the risk of infection. They detected and controlled the risk of it spreading and shared concerns with appropriate agencies promptly.

Checks were carried out by staff and leaders to ensure that people’s homes were clean and people were protected from the risk of infection. Within people’s home staff had PPE (personal protective equipment) for them to use when supporting people. All of the people’s homes we visited were clean and well maintained. The registered manager completed spot checks to ensure that people’s homes were clean and free from hazards.

The provider made sure that medicines and treatments were safe and met people’s needs, capacities and preferences. Staff involved people in planning, including when changes happened.

People were supported to manage their medicines safely. People were aware of the medicines they took, and the reasons for the medication. One person told us that they were working towards self-medicating. Staff were supporting the person with a step-by-step plan to enable them to be able to administer their medicines without staff support.

One person had been supported to reduce the medicines they were taking in line with STOMP. STOMP, which stands for "Stopping Over Medication of People with a learning disability, autism or both", is a national NHS England initiative aimed at reducing the inappropriate use of psychotropic medications for individuals with learning disabilities, autism, or both.