Advance Healthcare (UK) Limited

Advance Healthcare (UK) Limited provides personal care and support to people living in their own home. The agency provides care and support for older people, adults with disabilities and people who live with dementia. At the time of our inspection visit, services were being delivered to 159 people.

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 wide social care provided.

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

Since the last inspection, the provider had taken on another company, staff and their service users. Not all staff felt well informed regarding the merger of the 2 companies and felt communication could be improved.

The provider’s audits had not identified areas for improvement that were found on inspection. People were supported by a group of staff who knew them well, but care records did not always hold the most up to date information regarding people and their care needs. Current systems in place to monitor call delivery times were not always effective, which resulted in some people experiencing early or short calls.

People felt safe when supported by staff in their own home and were supported by a consistent group of staff who had been safely recruited. People were supported by staff who followed the latest infection control guidance when providing care. Accidents and incidents were reported and acted on and analysed for any lessons to be learnt.

People were complimentary of the staff who supported them. Staff felt supported but said they would value face to face training rather than online training. Staff were aware of people’s nutritional needs and supported people to attend healthcare appointments. 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’s feedback of the service was being sought and this information was used alongside other audits to help drive improvement.

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 18 March 2020). Since this last rating was awarded the registered provider has moved premises. We have used the previous rating to inform our planning and decisions about the rating at this inspection.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

The overall rating for the service has changed from good to requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and well led sections of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Advance Healthcare (UK) Limited on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

Advance Healthcare (UK) Ltd provides personal care and support to people living in their own home. The agency provides care and support for older people, adults with disabilities and people who live with dementia. At the time of our inspection visit, services were being delivered to 146 people.

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.

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

People told us the management team and staff were kind and caring and very good at their jobs. They said they felt safe with their care staff and trusted them. People and relatives were consistently complimentary about the kindness of the staff and the reliability of the service they received. We were told of occasions where staff had gone above and beyond what was expected of them.

The management team were passionate about supporting people who lived in their own home. The leadership and culture of the service was to provide a high-quality personalised support to people. All the care staff we spoke with were caring, kind and enthusiastic about their role.

Staff had been recruited safely, well trained and supported to provide the best possible care to people. Staff were committed to delivering inclusive personalised care and strongly focused on supporting people's needs and preferences. Staff spoke passionately about how they provided people with high quality, person-centred care. Staff turnover was low and people told us they were supported by staff who knew and consistently met their needs. The service liaised well with health and social care professionals.

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's care and support was planned with them. They told us they felt consulted and listened to about how their care was delivered. They said staff were respectful, friendly and reliable. People were happy they received care and support from staff that they had got to know. People told us they had never had a missed call and staff attended the calls at the appropriate time and stayed for the full duration of the call.

The management team continued to be passionate about supporting people who lived in their own home. They used a variety of methods to check the quality of the service and develop good practice. The leadership and culture of the service was to provide a high-quality, personalised support to people. Staff had a clear vision of what was required of them and were focused on doing so.

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 23 February 2016). Since this rating was awarded the registered provider of the service has moved premises. We have used the previous rating to inform our planning and decisions about the rating at this inspection.

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.