Marina Homecare Ltd T/A Visiting Angels Barnet and Enfield Also known as Visiting Angels Barnet and Enfield

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care,treatmentand support achieved good outcomes and promoteda good qualityof life, based on best available evidence.

This is the first assessment for this newly registered service. This key question has been rated good.

This service scored 67 (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 did make sure people’s care and treatment was effective, but there were some shortfalls with care planning.

People received an assessment of their care and health needs. They had regular reviews and check-ins from office staff during the year. However, people did not have effective care plans which directed staff to what they must do to meet people’s individual needs and if something went wrong. We spoke with the provider and registered manager about this who said they would revise and review people’s care plans.

The provider planned and delivered people’s care and treatment with them, including what was important and mattered to them. They did this in line with legislation and current evidence-based good practice and standards.

People received an assessment of need which involved their care and health needs but also how they wanted to receive their care. People told us their wishes were heard and acted upon.

The provider worked well across teams and services to support people. They made sure people only needed to tell their story once by sharing their assessment of needs.

Staff told us they worked well together, sharing information about the people they supported with each other and the office staff. They did this in order to update risk assessments and to assist the next care visit, so staff worked effectively. Staff were given a verbal handover in most cases when someone new joined the service. However, some staff felt the care plans and risk assessments were too long and confusing at times due to how they were structured. We raised this with the provider and registered manager who said this will feed into their work following our feedback regarding people’s care plans.

The provider supported people to manage their health and wellbeing to maximise their independence, choice and control. Staff supported people to live healthy lives.

Most people had family around them or they lived with partners who took on this role. But relatives felt confident it they weren’t about the staff would seek health input. The registered manager was involved with one person who did need a lot of input from health professionals. They made plans with these professionals to complement the work the staff were doing and to support the person’s health and quality of life.

The provider routinely monitored people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. They ensured that outcomes were positive and consistent, and that they met the expectations of people themselves.

The registered manager was involved in the management of people’s needs on a day-to-day basis. Each person had their own emergency plan, so in the event of a shortage of staff or severe weather, there were plans to meet their needs. People had face-to-face reviews and telephone checks to see if staff were meeting their needs and to correct any issues they may have about their care.

The provider told people about their rights around consent and respected these when delivering care. But there were short falls when people who may have lacked capacity were assessed.

Staff were clear about the need to obtain people’s consent to care, staff were guided by what people wanted them to do. But the provider and management were routinely assessing capacity without a reason to. They were unclear as to the purpose and their role as to the outcome of these assessments. When some people may have lacked capacity and experienced a restriction this was not identified and responded to. One person’s care records were contradictory if they lacked capacity and what the impact was for them.

When some people had a power of attorney in place (a nominated person to act on a person’s behalf if they lacked capacity to make decisions) these people were sometimes being asked to consent to the care package or to aspects of care planning when the person had capacity. Staff did not have care plans in place to say when these people should be consulted with and what their powers actually meant. The management had not always understood the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005and what it meant for them.

We fed this all back to the provider and registered manager, who later told us what they were doing to correct these issues. This had not had an adverse effect on individuals, but it could be a risk for the future.