Archived: Dana Care

We found that the provider had clear procedures in place to gain people's consent to their care and these were followed in practice. This included where people lacked the capacity to consent.

We found that care was planned and delivered to meet people's assessed needs. A person told us "when I have asked for something they sort it out - they are very good". One representative said "they (the person) are happy with them and that's what is important".

We found that the provider had appropriate arrangements in place to manage people's medicines.

People told us that they were satisfied with the provider's staff. One relative said "they are nearly always on time, do what I expect them to do and check what is necessary - I am perfectly happy with them". We found that staff were supported to carry out their role.

We found that people were asked about the quality of the service they received and arrangements were in place to identify and manage risks to people who used and worked in the service.

In this report the name of a registered manager appears who was not in post and not managing the regulatory activities at this location at the time of the inspection. Their name appears because they were still a Registered Manager on our register at the time.

We did not talk with people who use the service about the care they received during this inspection.

We checked how new care workers had been recruited and found that all of the necessary checks and references had been obtained. The service now had a robust recruitment process.

We looked at care plans and medication records and found that systems had been reviewed and improvements had been made. We found that people's records showed their needs and how they were to be met as well as information evidencing that the correct care had been given. The completion of medication records had also improved. The improved record keeping meant that people were protected from the risk of receiving unsafe or inappropriate care and treatment.

During our inspection we met with three people who received care from the agency and one family member. We also met four care workers. Everyone we spoke to was positive about the agency. We received comments such as "there are no words to describe how we feel about them, they are wonderful", "nothing is too much trouble for them". When we discussed the attitude of care workers people used words such as "cheerful", "attentive", "positive", "dedicated" and "reactive" to describe them.

We found that the agency respected people and involved them in the planning and delivery of their care. Everyone we spoke to said that they felt the care workers met all of their needs and sometimes "went over and above what I need". However, we found that the agency's records did not always reflect all of the care that they were providing. This was also the case when the agency was helping people with their medication.

When we looked at the recruitment of staff we found that appropriate policies and procedures had been put in place but that these had not always been consistently followed. This meant that there were some gaps in the evidence required to show that the agency had recruited care workers who were safe to look after vulnerable people.