Sunnybanks Home Care Service

Sunnybanks Home Care Service is a domiciliary care service that provides personal care and support for children 13-18 years of age, older people, people with learning adaptive needs/autism and people with physical and/or sensory adaptive needs. The personal care is provided by support staff completing care calls to people in their own homes. At the time of this inspection two younger adults with learning adaptive needs were using the service. They lived in a property that was owned by the registered provider.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects the service being received by people provided with personal care, where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.

The registered provider completed most of the care calls.

The service had not been fully developed and designed in line with the principles and values that underpin Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. This guidance is designed to ensure that people who use social care service can live as full a life as possible and achieve the best possible outcomes. The principles reflect the need for people with learning adaptive needs/or autism to live meaningful lives that include control, choice, and independence.

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

People's experience of using the service:

People were positive about the service. One person said, “I love living here in my home and I get all the help I need so that I can do that.” Another person said, “Great here and no problems.”

People had not been fully supported in the right way to manage their financial affairs and had been placed at risk of financial abuse. We have made a referral about this matter to the local safeguarding authority. In addition, we have made a recommendation about how people's consent to the receipt of support is obtained including how they are supported to spend their money.

People did not always receive safe personal care and support. This was because people had not been fully protected from the risk of fire. We have made a recommendation about how people should be supported to be safe from the risk of fire.

Care calls were not robustly organised to ensure that people consistently received the assistance they needed.

People were not consistently supported in the right way to manage their own medicines.

There were shortfalls in the arrangements to learn lessons when things had gone wrong.

Support staff did not have all of the knowledge and skills they needed to provide people with support in line with national guidance.

There were enough support staff and safe recruitment practices were in place.

People were supported to prevent and control infection.

There were enough support staff and safe recruitment practices were in place.

People were supported to eat and drink enough to have a balanced diet.

People had been helped to receive medical attention when necessary.

Support staff were courteous, respectful and promoted people’s independence.

Confidential information was kept private.

People were consulted about the practical support they received and had information given to them in an accessible way.

People’s citizenship rights were respected and they were supported to pursue their hobbies and interests.

There were suitable arrangements to manage complaints.

There were arrangements to treat people with compassion at the end of their lives and to enable them to have a pain-free death.

People had been consulted about the development of the service.

Improvement action we have told the registered provider to take:

We found evidence that the registered provider needed to make improvements. This was because the registered provider had not provided support staff with all the training and guidance they needed. In addition, the registered provider had not established robust systems and processes to operate, monitor and evaluate the running of the service. This had resulted in shortfalls occurring in the service.

Please see the Effective and Well-Led sections of this full report.

Please see the ‘action we have told the provider to take’ section towards the end of the report.

Why we inspected:

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

Follow up:

We have told the registered provider to send us an action plan to describe the improvements they will make to address the breaches of regulations. We will take this action plan into account and continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service. We will we return to visit the service in line with our re-inspection programme. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.

Sunnybanks Home Care Services provides care and support to the elderly, disabled and people with learning disabilities in their own homes. At our last inspection in December 2013 the service was meeting the regulations inspected.

The service was run by an individual provider who was also the manager and main carer at the time of our inspection.

People told us they felt safe and that they understood the risks they could face at home and in the community. People’s individual risk was assessed to help keep them safe. Care records and risk assessments were regularly reviewed. There were processes in place to help make sure people were protected from the risk of abuse and the manager was aware of safeguarding procedures and understood how to safeguard the people they supported.

People were involved in making decisions about their care and support and people’s care records reflected this. People were supported to attend appointments and the manager liaised with their GP and other healthcare professionals to help meet their health needs.

People were encouraged to make healthy food choices, when they wanted to. They were supported to buy groceries and the manager gave assistance with the preparation of people’s meals when required. People were prompted to take their medicine when they needed it.

People were very happy with the support they received and had known the manager for a long time. The manager knew the people they were supporting well and provided a personalised service for them while working hard to increase their independence. The manager explained the methods they used to help maintain people’s privacy and dignity.

The manager regularly spoke with people to make sure they were happy with the service and carried out regular meetings and surveys to review the quality of the care provided.

At the time of this inspection Sunnybanks Home Care Services was providing an active service to two people.

We spoke with people who used the service and their commented were, 'I love living here.', 'The registered manager is very good to me and helps me with my daily task.', 'I take my medication independently.' 'I feel safe and I am happy with the support I receive.' 'We are looking forward to spending some time over Christmas at the registered manager home as we do every year opening our presents there.'

We found that the provider had a system in place to monitor the quality of the service they provided and we found that people were generally satisfied with the care and treatment they received.

People were protected against the risks associated with medicines because the provider did have appropriate arrangements in place to manage medicines.

People were protected from the risks of unsafe or inappropriate care and treatment because accurate and appropriate records were maintained.

Needs assessments and care planning is undertaken with the involvement of the people who use the service and other relevant agencies such as social services.

Staff are adequately trained and hold the relevant qualification to provide the care and support that people require.

The provider monitors the quality of the service provided regularly and proactively, on a one to one basis. They seek the views and opinions of the people who use the service to ensure that peoples needs continue to be met.