Archived: Preferred Care Solutions Cumbria

Preferred Care Solutions is a small home care agency that was first registered in June 2016. The service provides care at home to older adults, people living with dementia and people living with a physical disability. The service delivers care in the Copeland area. At the time of our visit the service looked after 16 people, cared for by six members of staff.

The first registered manager had left the service in autumn 2016 and one of the directors of the company was in the last stages of the process to become registered with the Care Quality Commission. 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.

We found that the staff team needed more training on prevention of harm and abuse. We also noted that some allegations had not been dealt with appropriately. This was a breach of Regulation 13 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014; Safeguarding service users from abuse and improper treatment.

You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.

We also found that the provider had failed to notify the Care Quality Commission of two potential safeguarding matters. The failure to notify us of matters of concern as

outlined in the registration regulations is a breach of the provider's condition of registration and this matter is being dealt with outside of the inspection process.

We looked at recruitment and disciplinary matters and found some issues. This was a breach of Regulation 19 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014; Fit and proper persons employed because some staff were working with vulnerable people without suitable background checks in place.

You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.

We looked at how medicines were managed on behalf of people and there were some improvements needed. We made a recommendation about this.

We saw that staff were in the process of updating their training on some of the core subjects but we wanted to be sure that training would meet the needs of people using the service. We recommended that the provider put a plan in place to help with training needs and staff development.

Staff had received formal supervision and had also been supervised in people's homes when carrying out the care tasks.

People told us that staff gave them good support with meals, snacks and drinks.

We also learned that the staff team contacted health care professionals and could accompany people on health appointments.

The office was suitable for the size of the business however the provider was moving to larger premises.

All the people we spoke to told us that the staff were caring. They told us that they were polite and respectful, gave support appropriately and treated them with dignity. Daily notes and other records were written in a respectful manner.

Risk assessments, assessments of need and care planning was all under review. The manager and the senior support worker were updating care plans. These documents were of an acceptable standard.

Staff could accompany people to activities if necessary and some people liked to have staff to support them in this.

Complaints were appropriately managed. No one we spoke with had any complaints.

The manager and the senior support worker were working with the staff team to develop a caring culture in this relatively new service. There had been some issues around management in the first few months but we had evidence to show that management of staff and care delivery was improving.

The service was still developing a quality monitoring system and some problems with records meant that the service was in breach of Regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014; Good governance.

You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.