Archived: Efficiency Health and Homecare Services - Malmesbury

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, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence.

This is the first assessment for this service since it registered 05 January 2024. This key question has been rated requires improvement. This meant people did not always receive care that is appropriate, meets their needs and reflects their personal preferences.

This service scored 50 (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 not always assess people’s needs. They did not have a record that a needs assessment had been completed for each person or evidence that those needs had been reviewed with other professionals. People told us they did not know about their care plans. This meant that the provider could not assure themselves or others that care was provided in a manner that met the person’s needs and wishes.

The provider did not always deliver evidence based care. People’s care records did not contain enough detail about how to support them in a preferred way such as communication needs:, how to support with capacity; how to support at times of distress; and when involvement of others might be required. This meant that staff did not have an overview of how to minimise distress or how to support the person in the best way.

Although people’s care records had been reviewed, during these reviews changes and information that was required had not been identified and records had not been updated. This meant people had out of date care information written about them if their needs had changed.

The provider did not seek the views of people who used their service. This meant that people’s care and treatment was not always delivered in the best way possible to meet people’s needs and preferences.

The provider held regular team meetings with staff. Meeting records showed the team worked together and shared information. Staff told us that they worked well as a team and communicated with each other well. People told us that staff spoke to them whilst providing support and asked what they wanted. We requested evidence of collaborative working with other professionals. This was not provided.

We requested information relating to how people were supported to live healthier lives. This information was not provided. Care plans did not contain enough detail about how to support people to live healthily. Care plans did not contain information about how to support people with their dementia or epilepsy. This meant that people could be left in distress or at risk of harm.

The provider did not monitor or improve outcomes. The provider’s policy stated that complaints would be responded to with a written acknowledgment of the complaint and a response following their investigations. The records we reviewed did not contain details of any acknowledgement or response to people. However, the complaint records demonstrated that actions had been identified following complaints. Actions noted included regular moving and handling assessments would be completed and staff surveys would be sent. Although these actions had been identified the provider did not complete these actions or review the outcomes. This meant that the provider was failing to monitor or improve outcomes for people.

The provider did not ensure that consent to care and treatment was gained. People’s care records did not contain evidence that consent had been obtained or discussed with the individual or their representative. Additionally, the provider did not work in line with the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005 when supporting people who lacked capacity to consent to their care and treatment. Staff told us they had received some training on the MCA. However when we spoke to staff they did not have enough knowledge that would ensure people were supported with their capacity when making decisions. Training records provided did not evidence that staff had received specific MCA training. This meant that the provider could not be assured that people agreed to their care and treatment and people who may lack capacity may not have been supported in line with the legislation of the MCA (2005).