Archived: Mediline Home Care Derby City Branch

Mediline Home Care Derby City Branch is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal and nursing care to people in their own homes. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. The Care Quality Commission (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. There were 194 people receiving personal care at the time of the inspection.

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

People were protected from the risk of harm by staff who understood how to recognise and respond to concerns.

Staff told us they had received training in a range of areas to support them in their roles. Recruitment procedures ensured prospective staff were suitable to care for people receiving personal care in their own homes.

Risk assessments were in place, providing guidance for staff in how to mitigate risks and keep people safe from harm. People's medicines were administered as prescribed. People were protected from the risk of

infection.

The management team reviewed incidents and learning, any learning was shared with the staff team.

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 felt staff treated them with respect and were kind and caring towards them. Staff understood the importance of respecting people's privacy and promoted their dignity and independence.

People and or their relatives were involved in the planning of care. This was kept under review and updated as and when needed.

The provider's complaints policy and procedure was accessible to people who used the service and their representatives. People knew how to make a complaint and felt their concerns would be listened to and addressed.

The provider had systems in place to monitor the quality of the service to enable the management team to implement improvements when required. Staff felt supported by the management team.

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 27 September 2017).

Why we inspected:

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

Follow up:

We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people receive safe, compassionate, high quality care. Further inspections will be planned for future dates.

A registered manager was in place. 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Risk assessments were in place to protect people from risks to their health and welfare, though these did not cover all assessed issues. Staff recruitment checks were in place to protect people from receiving personal care from unsuitable staff.

People and relatives we spoke with told us they thought the service ensured that people received safe personal care from staff. Staff had been trained in safeguarding (protecting people from abuse) and understood their responsibilities in this area.

We saw that medicines had been, in the main, supplied safely and on time, to protect people’s health needs.

Staff had received training to ensure they had skills and knowledge to meet people's needs, though more training was needed on some relevant issues.

Not all staff understood their responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) to allow, as much as possible, people to have effective choices about how they lived their lives. Staff were aware to ask people’s consent when they provided personal care.

People and relatives told us that staff were friendly, kind, positive and caring. People told us they had been involved in making decisions about how and what personal care was needed to meet any identified needs.

Care plans were individual to the people using the service which helped to ensure that their needs were met.

People and relatives told us they would tell staff or management if they had any concerns, and they were confident these would be properly followed up.

They were satisfied with how the service was run. Staff felt they had been fully supported in their work by the management of the service.

Policies set out that when a safeguarding incident occurred management needed to take appropriate and action by making referrals to the relevant safeguarding agency. The registered manager was aware these incidents, if they occurred, needed to be reported to us, as legally required.

Management had carried out audits in order to check that the service was meeting people's needs and to ensure people were provided with a quality service, though more detail was needed to fully show what checks had been made.