The Care Quality Commission
  • Services in your home
  • Homecare service

Archived: Helping Hand Also known as Helping Hand

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

13 Finkin Street, Grantham, Lincolnshire, NG31 6QZ (01476) 512394

Provided and run by:
Mrs Nicola Kay French

Important: This service is now registered at a different address - see new profile
Important: The provider of this service changed - see old profile

All Inspections

27 September 2016

During a routine inspection

Helping Hand provides care for people in their own homes. The service can provide care for adults of all ages including people with a physical disability, sensory needs and a learning disability. It can also provide care for people who live with dementia and people who have mental health needs. At the time of our inspection the service was providing care for 53 people most of whom were older people. The service had its office in Grantham and covered Grantham, Colsterworth, Corby Glen, Long Bennington, Allington and surrounding villages.

The service was owned and operated by an individual who was supported by a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. In this report when we speak about both the owner and the registered manager we refer to them as being, ‘the registered persons’.

Staff knew how to respond to any concerns that might arise so that people were kept safe from abuse and people had been helped to avoid the risk of accidents. Medicines were managed safely, there were enough staff to complete all of the planned visits and background checks had been completed for new staff.

Staff had received training and guidance and they knew how to support people in the right way. People had been assisted to eat and drink enough and they had been supported to receive all of the healthcare assistance they needed.

CQC is required by law to monitor how registered persons apply the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and to report on what we find. The registered persons and staff had received training in this subject and this enabled them to help people make decisions for themselves. When people lacked the capacity to make their own decisions the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and codes of practice were followed. This helped to protect people’s rights by ensuring decisions were made that were in their best interests.

People were treated with kindness and compassion. Staff recognised people’s right to privacy, promoted their dignity and respected confidential information.

People had been consulted about the care they wanted to receive and they had been given all of the assistance they needed. People were helped to pursue their hobbies and interests and there was a system for resolving complaints.

Some quality checks had not been completed regularly to ensure that people reliably received all of the care they needed. People had not been fully consulted about how best to develop the service. Although staff were supported to speak out if they had any concerns good team work was not fully promoted. However, people had benefited from staff acting upon good practice guidance.