Archived: 1st Call Care Limited

People we spoke with gave us mixed comments about the service they received. People told us that some of the carers were very good and provided appropriate support that met their needs. Many people told us that a few of their carers were not always able to provide appropriate support. Some people told us that the service had not always respected people's privacy and dignity.

Some people we spoke with said that they did not want to complain or raise a concern about the service they received because they feared that their care would be negatively impacted as a result. Other people told us they had complained but found nothing had changed as a result.

We spoke with six carers about their experiences. Some told us they had not been properly supported to carry out their roles and others said that they were concerned about the calibre of other care staff.

We looked at the records of six people who used the service and found care plans lacked sufficient detail to say how individual people should be cared for. In addition, risk assessments did not properly consider the potential risks to people in providing their support.

We found that there were effective recruitment procedures in place and that staff were aware of how to respond to and recognise allegations of abuse.

However, we also found that there were not sufficient numbers of suitably qualified staff to meet the needs of people using the service and that staff had not been properly supported to enable them to carry out their roles. This meant that people may be at risk of receiving care that was inappropriate of unsafe.

The provider did not have a robust quality assurance system in place.

People using the service and their relatives told us that only sometimes did they get reviews of care plans and this was often after they had made a complaint. We did see reviews in care plans and these showed that comments were recorded by people using the service and plans were adapted.

We asked people using the service if they experienced any spot checks. Some people had but others hadn't. "A senior came in to do what she called a spot check, ticked everything off as being correct but the staff member pointed out that they hadn't been wearing their identity badge. So I didn't have much confidence after that." We saw spot check records in people's care plans but it was not always clear where things had been identified where this had been taken forward.

We were told: "They don't seem to have any contingency plans, you can complain and it will be ok for a short time then it goes back to how it was before."

We saw that quality monitoring of the service was not robust and many people using the service did not experience positive outcomes.