Helping Hands Horley

Helping Hands Horley is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people with a range of needs such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease. 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 our inspection, 34 people who were using the service received a regulated activity.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People received the medicines they required and medicine administration was safe. We did identify some shortfalls in recording however the registered manager was already working on this. Staff followed safe infection control practices and were aware of their responsibility to safeguard people from the risk of abuse. There were sufficient numbers of safely recruited staff to meet people’s needs. Missed calls that had occurred in the last three months were fully investigated and steps had been taken to prevent future occurrence.

People and relatives told us staff were extremely kind and caring towards them and treated them with dignity and respect at all times. People were involved in reviews of their care and felt comfortable to raise concerns if they needed to. Concerns that had been raised had been dealt with appropriately and in line with the service’s complaints policy.

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. The care delivered to people was personalised and allowed them to be part of the community or attend events that were important to them. Risks to people and their needs were appropriately managed by staff who knew people well. Thorough pre-assessments had been completed to ensure that a person’s needs could be met before staff began to deliver care.

Staff received regular training, including in specialist areas that were pertinent to the care they were delivering. Regular supervisions and direct observations took place to ensure staff were providing high quality care, as well as giving staff the chance to discuss their workloads and any issues. People and staff felt communication within the service was good, and people had been referred to health care professionals in a timely manner where required.

People, relatives and staff felt the registered manager was approachable and felt supported and valued by them. The registered manager was aware of their responsibility to notify CQC of certain events. People, relatives and staff were approached for their feedback through a variety of methods such as face to face, telephone calls or an electronic rating system. Plans were in place to improve areas of the service, such as introducing an electronic medicine recording system and creating profiles for people and staff to swap before care was delivered so they got to know each other. There were close working links with organisations to support people to remain living in their own homes.

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 28 March 2017).

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.

The inspection took place on 01 March 2017 and included a visit to the agency’s office, interviews with care workers and telephone calls with people who used the service and their families.

The service did not have a registered manager. 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 current manager had been managing the service since September 2016 and was in the process of applying to be registered.

The service was opened in June 2016 and the management team were still building the staff team at helping Hands Horley. The manager was realistic about the number of people the service could safely support and safely matched and deployed staff to people.

There were good systems in place to safeguard people from the risk of abuse and avoidable harm. Recruitment procedures were sufficiently robust to assess the suitability of new staff and those employed understood their roles and responsibilities in keeping people safe.

People’s needs were comprehensively assessed and there were good systems in place to identify and manage individual risks in a proactive and enabling way. Staff understood the importance of allowing people to live their lives as they wished, whilst balancing this with a duty of care to keep them safe.

Staff worked in close partnership with other healthcare professionals to ensure people were supported to maintain good health and their medicines managed safely. Where needed, people were safely assisted with the management of their medicines and maintain adequate nutrition and hydration.

Staff received ongoing training and support to ensure they had the skills and experience to meet people’s needs. Staff respected people’s right to make decisions from people and provided support to people in line with the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

People had positive relationships with their care workers and consistently received high quality and compassionate support. Staff were knowledgeable about the people they cared for and had a good understanding about their preferences and what was important to them.

People were included in the planning and reviewing of their support needs and as such received personalised care that was responsive to their individual and changing needs. People’s views were actively sought and their feedback listened to and acted upon.

The service was effectively managed and the provider had good systems in place to regularly monitor quality and identify areas for improvement. The new manager had fostered an open culture amongst the team and created a service in which people were placed at the centre.