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Archived: Availl - Bradford

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Accent Business Centre, Barkerend Road, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD3 9BD (01274) 739900

Provided and run by:
Gurmej And Associates Limited

All Inspections

6 March 2018

During a routine inspection

The inspection took place between 5 and 9 March 2018 and was announced.

Availl - Bradford is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. It provides a service to both older adults and, younger disabled adults. At the time of the inspection 18 people were receiving personal care from the service.

A registered manager was not in place. 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. A new manager had been in post since October 2017 and was going through the application process to be registered with the Commission.

At the last inspection in December 2016 we rated the provider as ‘Good’ overall and ‘Good’ in each of the individual domains. At this inspection we found the provider had maintained its overall ‘Good’ rating although we identified some minor concerns with the way systems and processes were operated. As a result we rated the ‘Is the service Well Led?’ domain as ’Requires Improvement.’

People provided positive feedback about the care and support they received from Availl. They said they received effective and appropriate care and that staff were kind and compassionate.

People said they felt safe in the company of staff. Systems and processes were in place to help protect people from abuse. Risks to people’s health and safety were assessed and risk assessment documents guided staff to help protect people from harm. The service learned from adverse events to improve the safety of the service.

Overall medicines were managed safely. People received their medicines when they needed them and documentation was kept to record this.

There were enough staff deployed to ensure people received consistently and timely care. Staff were able to arrive on time and stay with people for the allocated amount of time. Safe recruitment procedures were followed to help ensure staff were of suitable character to work with vulnerable people. Staff received a range of training which was relevant to their role.

The service was compliant with the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). People’s consent was sought before care and support was offered.

The service worked in partnership with other agencies including health professionals to help ensure people’s needs were met. People’s healthcare needs were assessed and plans of care put in place.

People said staff were kind and caring and treated them well. We saw good positive relationships had developed between people and staff. People received care from a small staff team to enable familiarity between people and staff.

People’s care needs were assessed and clear and detailed plans of care put in place. People said care needs were met and records confirmed this.

People were encouraged to provide feedback and raise any concerns or complaints they had. We saw complaints were dealt with appropriately by the service.

There was a good, person centred culture within the organisation with management and staff committed to providing personalised care and support. People and relatives spoke very highly about the overall quality of the service.

Documentation relating to some aspects of people’s care and support and the management of the service needed improving to consistently evidence that safe systems and processes were being followed. However we did not identify this had an impact on people who used the service and were confident the new management team would address the minor issues raised.

19 December 2016

During a routine inspection

Availl - Bradford provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the Bradford area. This was an announced inspection which took between 19 and 23 December 2016. At the time of the inspection, the service was delivering personal care to 18 people.

At the last inspection in December 2015 we were unable to provide the service with a rating as it had only been operating for 6 weeks and there was insufficient evidence of sustained good practice. However we did not identify any breaches of regulation.

A registered manager was in place. 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.

People and relatives spoke positively about the service. They said a high quality, personalised and reliable service was provided which met people’s care needs.

People said they felt safe in the company of staff. Staff had received training in safeguarding and understood how to identify and act on allegations of abuse.

Risks to people’s health and safety were assessed and clear and personalised plans of care put in place to help keep people safe. Following incidents, action was taken to learn from them and reduce the risk of a re-occurrence.

There were suitable quantities of staff deployed to ensure people received a reliable and timely care service. Robust recruitment procedures were in place to help ensure staff were suitable to work with vulnerable people.

Medicines were managed in a safe and proper way. The details of the medicines people took was clearly recorded and consistent records were kept of the support provided.

People told us staff had the right skills and knowledge to care for them. They said they received care and support from a consistent group of staff. Staff received regular training which was kept up-to-date and told us they were well supported.

The service was acting within the legal framework of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS).

Where required, people were supported appropriately to eat and drink.

People and relatives all said staff had a kind and caring attitude and treated them with a respectful and dignified manner. People received care from familiar faces and this had allowed people to develop good positive relationships with care staff.

People told us they felt listened to and had their comments or concerns acted on.

People’s care needs were assessed and clear and person centred care plans put in place which were subject to regular review. People told us care needs were met by the service.

People told us how staff took the time to chat with them and provide companionship as well as delivering more task based care and support.

Overall, people told us staff arrived on time and stayed for the correct amount of time, this was confirmed by the records we reviewed.

Complaints were logged and investigated and used as an opportunity to improve the service.

We found a positive, open and person centred culture existed within the service with management and staff committed to meeting the needs of people who used the service.

Systems were in place to assess, monitor and improve the service. People’s feedback was regularly sought and used to make further improvements to the service.

3 December 2015

During a routine inspection

Availl - Bradford provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the Bradford area. At the time of the inspection, the service was delivering personal care to eight people. This was an announced inspection which took between 2 and 4 December 2015.

A registered manager was in place. 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.

We identified some good areas of practice and people who used the service all described it as good or excellent. However the service had only been providing care and support to people for a maximum of six weeks with most care packages being less than three weeks old. This meant we were limited in the information we could review and were unable to make a judgement about whether the good practice we identified was sustainable over time. Therefore we were unable to provide a rating for this service.

People told us they felt safe in the company of care workers. Staff had received training in safeguarding and understood how to identify and act on allegations of abuse. Risk assessments were in place which provided staff with information on how to help keep people safe.

There were sufficient staff employed to ensure a consistent and reliable service. People told us staff arrived on time and staff told us they had enough time to conduct care tasks thoroughly.

The service operated safe recruitment procedures to ensure staff were of suitable character to work with vulnerable people.

Systems were in place to ensure medicines were safely managed.

Staff were provided with a range of mandatory training to help ensure they had the required skills and knowledge. People received care from a consistent group of staff which helped ensure they had the required knowledge to deliver care effectively.

The service was acting within the legal framework of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA). People told us they were supported appropriately to make choices about their care and support.

People were supported appropriately to maintain good nutrition and hydration.

The service had systems in place to identify and manage changes in people’s health.

People and their relatives told us staff were kind and caring and treated them with dignity and respect. They told us staff and the manager worked hard to provide personalised care with attention to detail.

A robust and thorough assessment process was in place to ensure people’s needs were fully assessed before care was provided. This helped ensure appropriate care was provided.

Systems were in place to record, investigate and respond to complaints. No complaints had so far been received by the service and people told us they were very satisfied with the way the service had so far been provided.

People and staff spoke positively about the registered manager and said they were approachable and dealt with any problems which arose. We found the registered manager to be dedicated to ensure a personalised and high quality service was provided

Audits and checks were undertaken by management both informally and formally to ensure the quality of the service was continuously monitored.