21 October 2022
During a routine inspection
Prime Healthcare Services Limited is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care to people in their own homes. The service provides support to people of different abilities. The services they provide include personal care and medicines support. At the time of inspection, the service provided personal care to 18 people. The Care Quality Commission (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:
Areas of potential risks to people were not always identified and appropriate risk assessments were not always in place. Some risk assessments lacked detail. This could result in people receiving unsafe care and we found a breach of regulation in respect of this.
Care support plans included information about information about people's medical background and social history. However, the information included in people's care plans was task-focused and lacked person centred guidance. We have made a recommendation in respect of this.
Recruitment processes helped to ensure that care workers assessed as safe to work with people were employed.
Appropriate medicines management and administration processes were in place.
People were protected from abuse. Staff had received training on how to safeguard people and were confident that if they raised any concerns with the registered manager, appropriate action would be taken.
Staff followed infection prevention and control guidance to minimise risks related to the spread of infection.
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.
Feedback obtained from relatives was generally positive. They told us they were confident that people were safe in the presence of care workers. They told us that care workers were caring, kind and respectful. People’s privacy, dignity and independence was respected and promoted.
There was a complaints policy and procedure in place.
Staff told us they were well supported by management. They were confident that the registered manager would listen and address any concerns if they raised them.
The service had introduced a system in place to monitor the quality of the service being provided to people. However, this had not yet been embedded in practice. We found that the service had failed to identify deficiencies we found in relation to risk assessments and have made a recommendation in respect of this.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection and update
The service was registered with us on 5 January 2022 and this is the first inspection.
Why we inspected:
This was a planned comprehensive inspection to review the key questions, Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led and rate this service.
The inspection was prompted because the service has not had an inspection and a rating since it was first registered with us.
Enforcement and recommendations
We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection.
We will continue to monitor the service and will take further action if needed.
We have identified one breach in relation to safe care and treatment at this inspection.
Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.
Follow up
We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.