Updated 12 April 2019
The inspection: We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team: One inspector, an assistant inspector and an expert by experience,
carried out the inspection. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of service.
Service and service type: Helping Hands Solihull is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes, including, older people, younger people, people with mental health problems, people living with dementia, people with sensory impairments and people with learning disabilities. CQC regulates the personal care provided.
The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
Notice of inspection: This comprehensive inspection took place on 7 March 2019. The inspection was announced. We gave the provider short notice of the inspection because we needed to be sure the registered manager and other staff would be available to speak with us.
What we did: Prior to the inspection, we looked at the information we held about the service and used this to help us plan our inspection. This included information the provider must notify us about, such as allegations of abuse. We also considered the Provider Information Return (PIR). This information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We also contacted the local authority commissioners for the service, they had no information to share with us.
During the inspection we spoke with:
¿ 12 people.
¿ Six people’s relatives.
¿The registered manager, the provider’s quality partner, the head of homecare, a care co-ordinator and three care workers.
We looked at:
¿ Five people's care records, including risk assessments and medicine records.
¿ Three staff personnel files, including recruitment, induction and training records.
¿ Records of accidents, incidents, compliments and complaints.
¿ Quality assurance information and completed audits and checks.