All inspections: Unite Highland Care Limited

Date of assessment: 28 April to 27 May 2025. This service is registered to support people with physical disabilities, autistic people and people with a learning disability. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ (RSRCRC) 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. We have assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture (RSRCRC)’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted.The principles of RSRCRC had started to be embedded into the service. There were now systems and processes to ensure that safeguarding and incidents were recorded and reported appropriately. Systems to review and improve the quality of the service were still newly implemented and therefore still needed time to be successfully embedded.

At our last assessment, the provider was in breach of legal regulations in relation to person centered care, dignity and respect, safeguarding, safe care and treatment, staffing, consent, fit and proper persons employed and governance. Improvements were found at this assessment and the provider was no longer in breach of these regulations. This service has been in Special Measures since 13 November 2024. The provider demonstrated improvements that have been made. The service is no longer rated as inadequate overall or in any of the key questions. Therefore, this service is no longer in Special Measures.

Date of assessment: 19 August to 13 September 2024. This service is registered to support autistic people and people with a learning disability. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ (RSRCRC) 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. The provider had failed to ensure they met the principles of RSRCRC. People had been harmed or were at risk of harm. People were not appropriately assessed, and staff did not have all of the information required. Risks were not well managed, and the service was poorly led. Lessons were not learned from incidents, and we were not assured the provider was open and transparent and shared all of the information we asked for during the assessment about incidents. The provider and staff had a poor understanding of assessment of people's capacity. Consent to care and treatment was not always obtained. Staff were not recruited safely, and people received calls that were late, early, short or overlapped. The provider conducted no audits on the service and did not maintain good oversight of the quality of care. We found 8 breaches of the legal regulations in relation to person-centred care, dignity and respect, safeguarding, safe care and treatment, staffing, consent, fit and proper persons employed and governance. This service is being placed in special measures. The purpose of special measures is to ensure that services providing inadequate care make significant improvements. Special measures provide a framework within which we use our enforcement powers in response to inadequate care and provide a timeframe within which providers must improve the quality of the care they provide. In instances where CQC have decided to take civil or criminal enforcement action against a provider, we will publish this information on our website after any representations and/ or appeals have been concluded.

About the service

Unite Highland Care provides personal care and support to people living in their own homes.

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.

The service was supporting 15 people at the time of our inspection, 8 of whom received personal care.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People told us staff were kind and helpful and knew their needs well. Staff treated people with respect and promoted their independence. People had opportunities to give feedback about their care and told us their views were listened to and acted upon.

Risk assessments had been carried out to identify and manage any risks involved in people’s care. Staff managed people’s medicines safely. People were protected from the risk of infection because staff followed good practice in infection prevention and control (IPC). Staff attended safeguarding training and knew how to report any concerns they had about abuse or poor practice. The agency’s recruitment procedures helped ensure staff were suitable for the work they did.

People’s needs were assessed before the agency provided their care. Care plans were developed from these assessments, which contained guidance for staff about how people’s care should be provided. Staff supported people to maintain good health and followed any guidance put in place by healthcare professionals.

People knew how to complain and felt able to raise concerns if they were dissatisfied. 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.

Staff had the training they needed to carry out their roles and to provide people’s care in a safe way. Staff received good support from the registered manager and could speak up if they had concerns or suggestions for improvements. Quality monitoring systems helped the registered manager maintain an effective oversight of the service and to ensure people received safe, consistent care.

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 7 January 2022 and this is the first inspection. Although registered in January 2022, the service did not begin providing care to people until July 2022.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

Unite Highland Care Limited

All Inspections

During an assessment under our new approach

During an assessment under our new approach

28 February 2023

During a routine inspection