Victoria Homecare Limited is a domiciliary care agency which provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the Doncaster area. At the time of our inspection it was predominantly supporting older people, including people living with dementia. Care and support was co-ordinated from the agency’s office, which is based in the centre of Doncaster. At the time of the inspection 62 people were receiving personal care from the service.The inspection took place on 2 November 2017 with the registered provider being given short notice of the visit to the office, in line with our current methodology for inspecting domiciliary care agencies. At our previous inspection in October 2016 the service was given an overall rating of ‘Good’. However, we found improvements were required in the ‘Well Led’ domain, where a breach of Regulation was found in respect of Regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 [Governance]. We asked the registered provider to submit an action plan outlining how they were going to address the shortfalls we found, which they did.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for ‘Victoria Homecare Limited’ on our website at www.cqc.org.uk’
At this inspection we found improvements had been made regarding the governance of the service. A more robust auditing system had been introduced and action plans were in place to address any areas found to need improvement.
The service had a registered manager in post at the time of our inspection. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
People were happy with the quality of the care they received, and told us that staff treated them with respect and dignity, and cared for them in a way which met their needs.
There were systems in place to reduce the risk of abuse and to assess and monitor potential risks to individual people. Staff had received appropriate training in relation to protecting people from the risk of abuse.
Recruitment processes were robust, which helped the employer make safer recruitment decisions when employing new staff. Staff had undertaken a range of training and support that aimed to meet people’s needs while developing staffs’ knowledge and skills. However, some staff felt additional training would be beneficial.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.
People were encouraged to manage their own medication if they were able to, while other people were supported by their close family. However, when assistance was required appropriate support was provided by staff who had been trained to carry out this role.
People’s needs and any potential risks had been assessed before their care package started and where possible they or their relatives had been involved in formulating their care plans. The company was in the process of moving paper records onto a new electronic system. Although the new system told staff what ‘tasks’ they needed to carry out at each visit, information about peoples abilities and preferences had not always been fully transferred on to the new record. This had not had a negative impact on people, as they were usually supported by the same core team of care staff who knew them well.
The complaints policy was provided to people using the service. The people we spoke with told us they would feel comfortable speaking to any of the staff if they had any concerns. When concerns had been raised we saw the correct procedure had been used to record, investigate and resolve issues.
People were consulted about their satisfaction in the service they received. All the people we spoke with, including staff, told us that overall they were happy with the way the service was run. People spoke positively about the registered manager and how staff delivered care.