26 June 2018
During a routine inspection
Allied Healthcare Warrington is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for personal care and treatment, disease, disorder and injury to people in their own homes in the community. The service is located in Warrington centre close to local amenities and to local transport links. At the time of the inspection the service supported 84 people in their own homes.
The service had 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.
We received positive comments from people receiving support and their relatives acting on behalf of their family members. People were happy with the staff and everyone was positive about the standards of care received where they felt the staff were well mannered and respectful to them.
Staff were aware of their responsibilities in keeping people safe and had received training in safeguarding adults. Staff responsible for supporting people with their medicines had ¿received training to ensure they had the competency and skills required.
There were sufficient staff to complete the scheduled visits for each person. People being supported relatives told us staff generally arrived on time. The service had a monitoring system that continually checked the promptness of their visits and could take action, if staff were running late for any reason.
Staff were recruited following a safe and robust process to make sure they were suitable to work with vulnerable people.
Staff were given appropriate support through a programme of training and on-going supervision, and appraisal. Staff were positive about the training provided to them which gave them the skills and knowledge they needed to do their job. People told us they felt safe and trusted the staff.
Peoples' support plans contained up to date, detailed information about their care and support, including risk assessments and action plans. Staff were knowledgeable about the needs of the people they supported.
The complaints procedure was explained in the 'welcome pack.' This was provided to people when they first choose the service for their care package. No complaints were raised at the time of inspection, everyone we spoke with told us they had no complaints.
The registered provider and registered manager used a variety of methods to assess and monitor the quality of the service. They carried out a lot of checks to all aspects of the service to make sure that each part of the service was operating appropriately. Visits to people, telephone reviews, customer surveys and observational checks were carried out by the registered provider to ensure that the standards of care were maintained and support was a good standard at all times.