South East Focus 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. This is the first assessment for this service. This key question has been rated good. This meant people were safe and protected from avoidable harm.

This service scored 75 (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 listened to concerns about safety and investigated and reported safety events. Lessons were learnt to continually identify and embed good practice. Senior staff promoted a positive learning culture at the service through their monitoring and engagement with staff. This included spot checks, competency assessment, supervision and team meetings. Staff were positive around the support they received from leaders. They told us they were given clear feedback and the opportunity to reflect on their practice to identify strengths and areas to improve. Staff had a good understanding around identifying, reporting and recording incidents. Senior staff reviewed incidents thematically, looking at trends or patterns to improve safety and quality of care. For example, they had worked with staff to improve recording around incidents to ensure details of events were fully captured. This helped them improve their future practice in response to incidents.

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. People told us the provider was flexible around changing care hours and care arrangements if required. This included being flexible if people had medical appointments or if they were unwell. The provider ensured people’s needs were reassessed after significant events, such as hospital admissions or injuries. This helped to ensure care arrangements were suitable and reflective of people’s current needs.

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 with professionals.

People told us they felt safe receiving care from staff. They told us staff were reliable and they trusted them.

Staff had good understanding around safeguarding, what constituted abuse and actions to take to help keep people safe. They told us they worked to help promote people’s home security. This included checks to promote safety around the use of key safes when accessing people’s homes.

Senior staff had a good oversight of safeguarding concerns and alerts received. Records demonstrated they understood their responsibilities in reporting and investigating concerns in partnership with professionals. There was evidence of reflective learning around safeguarding issues in the form of discussions in staff supervision and team meetings. For example, there had been pro-active work in improving staff’s recording around incidents and care notes.

The provider had effective policies in procedures in place to promote people’s safety. This included procedures around handling people’s money, promoting home security and ensuring their safety was accounted for if they were not contactable at the time of planned care call times. This helped to promote their safety and security.

Staff provided care to meet people’s needs that was safe, supportive and enabled people to do the things that mattered to them. People told us they received a reliable service and had not experienced any missed calls. They told us that staff were skilled at supporting them to manage risks around the use of equipment, moving and handling and risks related to their health. Staff were confident in detailing how they would monitor and reduce risks in relation to areas such as safe use of hoists, catheters, stomas and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG). People’s care plan’s contained detailed and clear instructions for staff around how to support people to manage and monitor their medical conditions and any related equipment associated with people’s care. Care plans also documented when to escalate concerns to professionals to ensure that staff acted within their sphere of responsibility. This helped to keep people safe. There were policies and systems in place to help reduce risks related to monitoring care remotely. For example, non entry polices, business continuity plans and electronic call monitoring. This helped reduce risks related to providing care in community-based settings.

The provider detected and controlled potential risks in the care environment. They made sure equipment, facilities and technology supported the delivery of safe care. People told us they were supported to remain safe in their own home. They told us they had the equipment they needed to support safe care and staff had a good understanding of how to use and support them to maintain it. The provider made assessments of people’s home environments to identify and reduce any risks related to the delivery of care. Staff had a clear understanding of when to raise concerns to senior staff in relation to environmental safety. For example, when people did not have suitable moving and handling equipment in place. The provider used technology to help promote the safe delivery of care. For example, senior staff monitored electronic care planning systems both within and outside of office hours. This helped to promote safety for both people and staff as the provider was assured care visits were completed as planned.

The provider made sure there were enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff, who received effective support, supervision and development. They worked together well to provide safe care that met people’s individual needs.

People were happy with the staffing arrangements in place. They told us they received consistent staff, who understood their needs. They felt staff were competent and were trained to a good standard.

Staff were positive about the training and ongoing support they received in their role. They told us they had received training around people’s specific medical conditions and care related equipment. This included catheters, hoists, stoma care and PEG. Senior staff regularly reviewed staff’s working performance, considering feedback from people, other staff and observations of staff at work. They met regularly with staff to share feedback, identify training needs and set objectives to help staff improve.

There were sufficient numbers of staff in place to cover care calls and meet people’s needs. The provider had completed pro-active work around identifying gaps in care call rounds where there was potential to take on new packages of care. This helped them to plan how to safely grow the size of the business whilst ensuring there were sufficient staff in place.

The provider had safe staff recruitment processes in place which helped to ensure staff were of good character and were suitably qualified for 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 followed good infection control and hygiene practices. They told us staff helped to keep their homes clean and wore appropriate PPE when supporting them with their personal care. Staff had a good knowledge of good practice in infection prevention and control. They said there were adequate supplies of PPE in place for them to use whilst supporting people with their personal care. There were effective infection prevention and control policies in place and the provider had taken measures to improve processes to reduce the risk of infections spreading. For example, by providing staff with sealable ‘PPE’ bags to help prevent the spread of infectious agents between care calls or care tasks.

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 received their medicines as prescribed and staff supported them to be as independent as possible around their medicines management. For example, one person administered their medicines independently. However, they had an agreed system to record administration, so staff could check with them it had been taken as planned. The person told us this helped give them assurance they had administered their medicines whilst still maintaining a level of independence.

Staff had a good knowledge of procedures in line with best practice when administering people’s medicines. Senior staff completed regular competency assessments and spot checks of staff when supporting people with their medicines administration. This included assessing staff’s knowledge around people’s individual preferences, routines and prescribed medicines. This helped ensure staff had a good understanding of which medicines people were prescribed and why.

People’s care plans documented the support people required in the management of their medicines. This included their levels of independence, any associated risks and the arrangements around ensuring there were adequate supplies of medicines in place. The provider had an electronic recording system in place. This helped to promote the pro-active monitoring of administration, which reduced risks related to medicines errors.