We carried out a review of the data available to us about Dale Care - Durham and Gateshead Homecare on 6 July 2023. We have not found evidence that we need to carry out an inspection or reassess our rating at this stage.
This could change at any time if we receive new information. We will continue to monitor data about this service.
If you have concerns about Dale Care - Durham and Gateshead Homecare, you can give feedback on this service.
Dale Care - Durham and Gateshead Homecare is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection there were approximately 1,000 people using the service. The service supports older people, younger people and people with learning disabilities.
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.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
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 services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.
Right Support: Staff aided people to live as independently as possible. 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.
Whilst the provider had met challenges in recruiting and retaining staff, the management team had taken steps to offer incentives to improve this and provide sufficient staffing to meet people’s needs. Risks were assessed and a culture was in place where staff felt comfortable in raising concerns if they had them. People were supported to take medicines safely.
Staff were given appropriate training to do their roles. People were supported to eat and drink balanced diets. Staff supported people in accessing health services when required and people were involved in making choices about their care.
Right Care: Staff had the correct values, skills and experience to support the people who used the service.
People's support plans recognised their differences and people were treated with dignity and respect by staff. People using the service were able to express their own views either by themselves or with the help of their support workers.
The communication needs of people who used the service were assessed and considered. This information was shared with other healthcare providers when necessary. When things went wrong, actions were put into place and lessons learned were shared with staff to improve the standard of care delivered.
Right Culture: Staff understood and spoke positively about the importance of person-centred care and helping people to live as independently as they wished. The management team understood their roles and responsibilities. The management team sought feedback from people using the service, their relatives and staff.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
This service was registered with us on 5 November 2021 and this is the first inspection.
Why we inspected
This inspection took place as this is a newly registered service which we had not yet rated.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.