Live Life Care Limited

On this page

• Overview
• Learning culture
• Safe systems, pathways and transitions
• Safeguarding
• Involving people to manage risks
• Safe environments
• Safe and effective staffing
• Infection prevention and control
• Medicines optimisation

Safe – this means we looked for evidence that people were protected from abuse and avoidable harm. At our last assessment we rated this key question good. At this assessment the rating has remained good. This meant people were safe and protected from avoidable harm.

This service scored 72 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The provider had a proactive and positive culture of safety, based on openness and honesty.

Staff understood their responsibilities to record and report accidents and incidents. Accidents and incidents were monitored and investigated appropriately.Lessons learnt were shared with staff to prevent them from happening again.

The provider worked with people and healthcare partners to establish and maintain safe systems of care, in which safety was managed or monitored. They made sure there was continuity of care, including when people moved between different services.

Staff were skilled at identifying when people’s health deteriorated and raised concerns about people’s health quickly. They worked with all agencies involved in people’s care for the best outcomes.

The provider worked with people and healthcare partners to understand what being safe meant to them and the best way to achieve that. Staff concentrated on improving people’s lives while protecting their right to live in safety, free from bullying, harassment, abuse, discrimination, avoidable harm and neglect. The provider shared concerns quickly and appropriately.

People told us they felt safe. Staff had completed safeguarding training. They knew how to protect people from harm and abuse and how to raise concerns.

The provider had safeguarding policies and procedures. Records showed safeguarding concerns were recorded in detail and reported to the relevant external agencies. People and their representatives were involved in this process.

People can only be deprived of their liberty to receive care and treatment with appropriate legal authority. When people receive care and treatment in their own homes, an application must be made to the Court of Protection for them to authorise people to be deprived of their liberty. We checked whether the service was working within the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and how they managed DoLS within the service.

At the time of the assessment, no one using the service had a court of protection authorisation in place to deprive them of their liberty.

The provider worked with people to understand and manage risks by thinking holistically. Staff provided care to meet people’s needs that was safe, supportive and enabled people to do the things that mattered to them.

People were involved in their assessment of risk. Staff were given relevant training to help them keep people safe. This included any training regarding equipment used to support people. One relative said, “The carers are well trained and can use the hoist safely.”

Staff identified risks and understood how to manage them. Where staff identified additional support or equipment was needed to reduce risk, this was actioned.

The provider detected and controlled potential risks in the care environment. They made sure equipment, facilities and technology supported the delivery of safe care.

Environmental risks were assessed within people’s homes prior to care being delivered.

The provider did not always make sure there were enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff. However, staff worked together well to provide safe care that met people’s individual needs.

The service had experienced staffing issues due to short notice absence. Several staff told us there were not always enough staff, and short notice staff absence had placed additional pressure on them. They said, “If someone calls in sick they then have to share out the person’s visits and they will cut 10 minutes from people’s visits here and there to fit it all in”; “It is not uncommon for carers to have insufficient travel time between visits and no scheduled breaks”, and “The office is ringing our service users to cancel or adjust the visits”. The registered manager told us they had to cancel some visits, but they ensured essential care was carried out and people’s needs were met. The provider had used a range of methods to attract and recruit staff. Some new staff had been recruited and recruitment was ongoing.

People told us they were happy with the staff who visited them. Comments included, “The carers are well trained and do a good job” and “They arrive at the time we expect and stay for the allocated time slot.”

Staff told us they had completed a wide range of training and felt confident in their role. Staff said, “We have medication training and manual handling in-person training, and I have re-done my medication recently. And we also have our online training and that is great as you can go through it at your own pace” and “My training is up to date, and I feel the training we are given is just right for the job we do.Several staff said they would like more face-to-face training. The registered manager told us they were reviewing and introducing new training.

The service had a safe staff recruitment system. Supervisions and spot checks were carried out to ensure staff were competent in their role.

The provider assessed and managed the risk of infection. They detected and controlled the risk of it spreading and shared concerns with appropriate agencies promptly.

People told us staff wore personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gloves and aprons. Staff told us they had completed infection control training. The provider had a policy for infection control. PPE was always available to staff. The provider had undertaken spot checks on staff working in people’s homes to ensure staff were wearing the correct PPE.

The provider made sure that medicines and treatments were safe and met people’s needs, capacities and preferences. Staff involved people in planning, including when changes happened.

People told us they were happy with the support they received with their medicines. Staff told us they had completed medicines training. The provider had a medicines management policy. When staff administered medicines, they completed Medication Administration Record sheets.