Archived: Thurrock

Thurrock is a care agency that is registered to provide personal care to people within their own homes. The service is based in Grays in Essex and covers the surrounding areas.

The service has a registered manager in post. 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.

The service work very well to ensure that people were supported in the community to undertake activities of interest to them which enhanced their health and wellbeing. The service actively engaged with the local community to enrich people’s lives and people spoke highly of the support they received. The service offered a ‘coffee morning’ service to people who used the service, this enabled people to meet others, socialise and build relationships. The service is also involved in a new local authority scheme, which enables people to connect with the community in hobbies and pastimes that they enjoy.

People were confident that when they raised any concerns these would be dealt with promptly and effectively. They felt the service was very responsive to them at all times. The service had a clear complaints procedure in place and people had been provided with this information as part of their assessment. We saw that complaints had been appropriately investigated and recorded.

People had assessments completed before they started with the service; care plans were developed around each individual needs and preferences. People had agreed to their care and their views on how this would be provided had been respected. People said they were treated with dignity and respect and that staff provided their care in a kind and caring manner. People were supported by staff to maintain good health and where needed, they would assist them to gain access or contact healthcare providers.

The registered manager promoted a person centred, open and honest culture. Staff were happy to work for the service and were supported to carry out their roles.

Staff showed a good knowledge of safeguarding procedures and were clear about the actions they would take to help protect people. Risk assessments had been completed to help staff to support people with everyday risks and help to keep them safe. These had been regularly reviewed to ensure both staff and people who received a service were kept safe. Systems were in place to assist people with the management of their medication and help ensure people received their medication as prescribed and they received the support they needed. People were given nutritional support when required.

There were safe recruitment procedures to help ensure that people received their support from staff of suitable character. Recruitment checks had been carried out before staff started work to ensure that they were suitable to work in a care setting. There were sufficient staff available, with the right competencies, skills and experience to help meet the needs of the people who used the service. Staff told us that they felt well supported to carry out their work and had received regular supervision and training.

There were systems to assure quality and identify any potential improvements to the service. This meant people benefited from an improving service. The service had an effective quality assurance system and had regular contact with people who used the service. People felt listened to and that their views and opinions had been sought.

We spoke to four members of staff who told us they felt supported by the manager and that they had received enough training to enable them to carry out their roles safely. One member of staff told us, "training is fantastic." Another person told us, "the manager has been very supportive towards me and I can approach her at any time."

We looked at care plan files for four people who use the service and saw people's needs were assessed and care and treatment was planned and delivered in line with their individual care plan.

Medicines were handled safely and appropriately and people received medicines as prescribed for them as part of their care and treatment.

There were suitable systems in place to effectively monitor and improve the quality of services provided by the service.

We inspected four people's care plans and saw that their needs were assessed before a service was provided to them. This meant that staff knew what people's needs were and staff received a basic induction and training to ensure they were able to meet people's individual needs. Information in the care plans was not person specific, which meant that staff may not know how much assistance a person required or what they needed help with.

Most people we spoke with were happy with the service provided and said they usually had regular staff visiting them, but this fluctuated when their regular carers were on holiday. Four people told us that weekends were particularly difficult and they were never sure who was coming if staff rang in sick. People said staff's time keeping was good but four people told us they were not always informed by office staff when staff were running late and would have to ring to find out. Three people said it was difficult to find out what was happening at the weekend.

One person said that some of the staff were always in a hurry. People told us care staff stayed the correct amount of time. Two people told us that they did not think they were allocated sufficient time to have their needs met in a satisfactory way. One person told us that it was not very dignified as staff were rushing to complete in time.