Archived: Amelia Home Care

Updated 7 June 2016

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

The inspection was carried out on 19 April 2016 and was announced. The inspection was undertaken by a single inspector.

Before the inspection we reviewed relevant information that we had about the provider including any notifications of safeguarding or incidents affecting people’s safety and wellbeing.

During the inspection we looked at five care plans, which consisted of people receiving personal care in their own home. We reviewed five staff files and looked at documents linked to the day to day running of the agency including a range of policies and procedures. We also looked at other documents held at the service such as quality assurance audits and risk assessments and staff meeting minutes. We spoke with both registered manager, the provider and one staff member.

After the inspection we spoke with two people, four relatives and two staff members.

Updated 7 June 2016

We carried out an inspection of Amelia Home Care on 19 April 2016. This was an announced inspection where we gave the provider 48 hours’ notice because we needed to ensure someone would be available to speak with us.

Amelia Home Care is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people in their own home. At the time of our inspection there were nine people who received personal care from the agency. The service had not had an inspection done previously.

The service had two registered managers 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.

Some risk assessments were not updated to reflect people’s current needs and did not take into consideration people’s health needs. When a risk was identified, assessments did not provide clear guidance to staff on the actions they needed to take to mitigate risks in protecting people such as skin integrity, moving and handling and medicines.

Staff provided support with medicines for people to self-administer their medicines, prompting people and recording medicines intake on medicines administration (MAR) charts. Medicines audits were not being carried out to ensure medicines were being managed safely.

People’s capacity was being assessed and some people were determined to have limited judgement. However, the assessments did not specify what area’s people did not have capacity and we did not find evidence of best interests meeting being held to make a decision on the person’s behalf. Assessments were not being completed in accordance to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA).

Staff told us there were supported by the management team. However, although appraisals were being completed, formal one to one supervisions had not been carried out with staff members.

We did not see documentary evidence that audits were being carried out on people’s and staff records such as care plans, risk assessments and supervision that would have helped identified the issues we found during the inspection.

People had choices during mealtimes and staff assisted with meals in accordance to people’s preferences. Food was not being monitored comprehensively for one person with specific health concerns to ensure they had a healthy balanced diet. This was fed back to the registered managers and a food intake chart was created to monitor the person’s food intake.

People were protected from abuse and avoidable harm. People told us they were happy with the support received from the service. Staff knew how to report alleged abuse and were able to describe the different types of abuse. Staff knew how to ‘whistleblow’. Whistleblowing is when someone who works for an employer raises a concern about a potential risk of harm to people who use the service.

People were supported by suitably qualified and experienced staff. Recruitment and selection procedures were in place and being followed. Checks had been undertaken to ensure staff were suitable for the role. Staff members were suitably trained to carry out their duties and knew their responsibilities to keep people safe and meet people’s needs.

People were supported to plan their support and they received a service that was based on their personal needs and wishes. People were involved in the planning of their care and the care plan was then signed by people to ensure they were happy with the care and support listed on the care plan.

Questionnaires were completed by people about the service, which were positive. Spot checks were carried out to provide feedback to staff on areas that needed improving.

There was a formal complaints procedure with response times. People were aware of how to make complaints and staff knew how to respond to complaints in accordance with the service’s complaint policy.

People and relatives told us that staff communicated well with them. However, people’s ability to communicate was not recorded in their care plans.

People were supported to maintain good health and appropriate referrals to other healthcare professionals were made.

People were encouraged to be independent and their privacy and dignity was maintained.

Staff meetings were held regularly.

We identified breaches of regulations relating to consent, staffing and risk management. You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the back of the full version of this report.