Dana Home Care

Updated 21 February 2019

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team:

Our inspection was completed by two inspectors and an expert-by-experience. An expert-by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. Our expert-by-experience had knowledge about personal care provision for adults within the community. The expert-by-experience supported the inspection by making telephone calls to people who used the service and their relatives.

Service and service type:

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people with a learning disability living in a supported living setting allocated staff 24 hours per day.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection:

We gave the service three days’ notice of the inspection site visits because some of the people using it could not consent to a home visit from an inspector, which meant that we had to arrange for a ‘best interests’ decision about this.

Inspection site visit activity took place on 17 January 2018. We visited three supported living houses to speak with people, review medicines and care records. We visited the office location on the same day to see the manager and office staff; and to review staff recruitment and training files and policies and procedures.

What we did:

Our inspection was informed by evidence we already held about the service such as, notifications received. We also checked for feedback we received from members of the public, local authorities and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). We checked records held by Companies House.

We spoke with three people who used the service and six people’s relatives.

We spoke with the registered manager, service manager, two deputy managers and five support workers.

We reviewed five people's care records, five staff personnel files, audits and other records about the management of the service.

We requested additional evidence to be sent to us after our inspection. This was received and the information was used as part of our inspection.

Updated 21 February 2019

About the service: Dana Home Care provides personal care to people across five supported living locations. At the time of the inspection, 13 people over the age of 18 with learning disabilities, were using the service.

People’s experience of using this service:

The provider had made improvements to the service since our last inspection on 21, 22 and 28 November 2017.

New procedures had been embedded which resulted in medicines being managed safely. People received their medicines as prescribed.

Required checks were completed to ensure new staff were suitable for their role.

People and relatives told us the staff were kind, friendly and dedicated. Staff were knowledgeable around people’s needs.

Processes were in place to ensure that people could raise concerns. Complaints were investigated and responded to.

The provider used their staff, leaders and management team to achieve compliance with the regulations. The provider had provided the necessary support to enable satisfactory organisational change.

Governance of the service had improved. Checks and audits were carried out to determine the quality of the care. The provider had promptly acted on some areas already identified for improvement. The provider had also submitted all required notifications to CQC.

The care service has been developed and designed in line with the values that underpin the Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. These values include choice, promotion of independence and inclusion. People with learning disabilities and autism using the service can live as ordinary a life as any citizen.

The service met the characteristics for a rating of "good" in all the key questions we inspected. Therefore, our overall rating for the service after this inspection was "good".

More information is in our full report.

Rating at last inspection: At our last inspection, the service was rated "requires improvement". Our last report was published on 23 January 2017.

Why we inspected: All services rated "requires improvement" are re-inspected within one year of our prior inspection. This inspection was part of our scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received.

Follow up: We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people receive safe, compassionate, high quality care. Further inspections will be planned for future dates.