About the service AMG Nursing and Care Services (Stafford and Stoke-on-Trent) is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care and support to people in their own homes. 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. At the time of inspection, 45 people were receiving a regulated service, the majority of people were receiving longer care calls, with some receiving 24-hour support.
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 assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Right Support:
People were supported to be involved in their care and to manage their own risks. However, we have made a recommendation to the provider to review the documentation and recording of people’s pain management.
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.
People were supported by trained staff. People told us staff arrived on time and stayed for the designated duration of time.
Staff supported people with their medicines safely. Robust quality audits ensured people’s medicines were monitored and reviewed in a timely manner.
Right Care:
Staff understood how to protect people from abuse. The provider worked well with other agencies to do so. Staff received safeguarding training and they told us how they would report any concerns to their manager.
The provider had enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe. Staff had been recruited safely and all relevant pre-employment checks had been undertaken.
People’s care plans reflected their range of support requirements. Staff knew people well and could tell us about people’s preferences and how these could be met safely.
Right Culture:
People’s quality of life was enhanced by the provider’s culture of improvement and inclusivity. People could choose to be involved in the recruitment process, ensuring they could express their opinions and choices regarding the staff who would be supporting them.
Each person was supported by a team of staff who regularly engaged in person specific team meetings to discuss the care and support required. People and relatives were invited to attend the meetings.
The provider evaluated the quality of support provided to people, involving the person, their families and other professionals as appropriate. People, relatives and staff received questionnaires in order to provide feedback on the care and support provided.
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 09 January 2020)
Why we inspected
We received concerns relating to training of staff, care planning and incident recording. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.
We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from these concerns. Please see the safe and well led sections of this full report.
For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.
The overall rating for the service has not changed. The service remains good based on the findings of this inspection.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.