Body&Soul Assistance, Admin.

Body&Soul Assistance, Admin is a is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people living in their own houses, flats and specialist housing. At the time of our inspection the service was supporting 1 person with personal care.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided.

People’s experience of the service and what we found:

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessment and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

The governance of the service was not effective because systems were not in place to identify areas where improvements were needed. The provider did not have a number of governance systems in line with their regulatory requirements. Care plans and risk assessments were basic and there was limited record keeping.

Systems required to ensure the safe recruitment of staff were not in place. However, the person in receipt of services told us they felt safe, staff kept them safe and there were sufficient staff to meet all their needs. Not all staff knew about systems to safeguard people.

We have made a recommendation about staff training on safeguarding.

The person in receipt of care told us that the culture of the service was open and met all their needs. They told us staff helped them manage their medication well and they were responsive to their feedback.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was Good (published 06 September 2017).

Why we inspected

We inspected due to the length of time since the last inspection.

We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only. For those key question not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection by selecting the ‘All inspection reports and timeline’ link for Body&Soul Assistance, Admin on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement and Recommendations

We have identified breaches in relation to staff recruitment and the good governance at this inspection. We have made a recommendation about staff training on safeguarding.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow Up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

This was an ‘inspection using remote technology’. This means we did not visit the office location and instead used technology such as electronic file sharing to gather information, and video and phone calls to engage with people using the service as part of this performance review and assessment.

Body and Soul Assistance is a small domiciliary care agency based in Addingham, near Ilkley. It offers 24 hour care to people with a physical disability.

There is currently one person receiving care and support who is also the provider and registered manager.

There is a registered manager at the service. 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.

On the date of the inspection, the service was providing limited personal care to one person. We spoke with this person. They told us they were very happy with the care provided and felt safe. They said staff offered good and effective care and support.

Safeguarding policies and procedures were in place. Staff understood how to recognise signs of abuse and had received safeguarding training. Procedures were in place for reporting of incidents/accidents.

Relevant risk assessments were in place and care records were person specific with a focus on maintaining independence and respecting personal preferences.

Sufficient staff were deployed and training was in place so staff had the required skills to provide safe and effective care and support. Safe recruitment procedures were mostly in place. Staff appeared caring and kind and knew the care needs of the person they were supporting.

Informal staff meetings took place although these were not documented. Supervision and spot checks took place on an on-going basis due to the unique nature of the service, although these were not documented. Staff confirmed these took place. Annual appraisals were to be implemented when staff attained over two years' service. Staff morale was good and staff worked together as a team.

A medicines policy and appropriate medicines support was in place.

The registered manager had a good understanding of their legal responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005. We saw evidence of consent in care records and through our observations during the inspection.

Appropriate nutritional and health care needs support was provided.

A complaints process was in place although no complaints had been received over the last 12 months.

The registered manager was aware of the need to have formal audit processes in place if the service was to expand. Staff told us the registered manager was supportive and they enjoyed working at the service.