Mother's Touch 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 69 (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.

There was a learning culture when things went wrong. The registered manager told us there had not been any safeguarding allegations or complaints within the past 12 months but there had been one serious accident. This had been reviewed with lessons learnt which were then shared with the staff team through a team meeting and updated care plan. There were relevant policies in place to guide a learning culture, such as complaints and accidents and incidents policies.

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.

The provider worked with people and their relatives when people first started using the service. This included carrying out an assessment of the person’s needs to ensure they could be met. The provider also worked with other healthcare agencies such as hospitals when people moved between services, including supporting people to attend hospital appointments.

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.

The registered manager told us there had not been any safeguarding concerns in the past 12 months. There was a safeguarding adults’ policy to provide guidance in this area. Staff had undertaken safeguarding adults training and were aware of their responsibility to report any allegations of abuse. A staff member told us, “I need to report it to my manager and document everything.”

The provider did not always work well with people to understand and manage risks. Staff provided care to meet people’s needs that was safe, supportive and enabled people to do the things that mattered to them.

Risk assessments were in place for people. For most people these were of a good standard, setting out the risks individuals faced alongside information about how to mitigate those risks. However, we noted for one person there had been a significant change in their condition, and their risk assessment had not been updated to reflect this. We discussed this with the registered manager who reviewed and updated the risk assessment shortly after our inspection. The risk was also covered in the person’s care plan, which had been reviewed to reflect the change in the person’s condition. Relatives told us that people were safe. When asked if their relative was safe a relative replied, “Oh yes.”

The provider detected and controlled potential risks in the care environment. They made sure equipment, facilities and technology supported the delivery of safe care.
The provider supported people who lived in their own homes. As such, the provider was not responsible for the maintenance of people’s property or possessions. However, they had caried out environmental risk assessments to help ensure the environment was safe for staff to work in. Assessments covered areas such trip hazards, fire evacuations and infection prevention and control.
 

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.
There were enough staff to support people in a safe way. People told us staff were punctual and stayed for the full amount of time allocated for the care call. A person said, “They [staff] are very punctual. If they are going to be 5 minutes late, I get a text.” Another relative said, “They [staff] are on time.” Staff logged in and out of each visit electronically, so it was easy for the provider to monitor staff punctuality.
Staff recruitment checks were carried out on prospective staff to help ensure they were suitable to work in a care setting. These included criminal records checks, employment references and proof of the right to work in the UK.
Staff undertook regular training to help support and develop them in their role. This included training on dignity in care, falls awareness and dementia awareness. Staff also had regular 1 to 1 supervision with a senior member of staff. Staff told us this was helpful as it gave them the opportunity to discuss matters of importance to them, such as changes to people’s needs and training opportunities.
 

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.

There were systems in place to help prevent the spread of infection. Staff were expected to wear personal protective equipment [PPE] when providing support with personal care. Staff confirmed that they did wear PPE. Staff had also undertaken training about infection control. In addition, the provider had a policy on infection prevention and control to help guide good practice in this area.

The provider did not always make sure that medicines were safe.
Medicines were mostly managed in a safe way. Relatives told us medicines were given as required. A relative said staff, “Never missed [giving the medicine].” Another relative said, “They [staff] put the drops in [person’s] eyes. The do that well. They are trained.”

Medicine administration records [MARs] were used to record when a medicine had been given. The provider changed the format of the MARs in April 2026, so staff just signed once when they administered all required medicines at a given time, whereas previously they had signed for each individual medicine they administered. The new system meant there was no longer a clear audit trail of each individual administration. Further, some staff just signed the MAR with their first initial, so it was not always clear which staff member had given the medicine. We discussed these issues with the registered manager who assured us they would go back to the previous style of MAR charts and make sure staff signed with both of their initials. MARs we checked did not contain any errors or unexplained gaps.