Helping Hands Durham

Updated 16 September 2023

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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

This inspection was carried out by 1 inspector and 1 Expert by Experience. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations. At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 hours' notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 13 June 2023 and ended on 15 August 2023. We visited the service's office on 13 June 2023 and 15 August 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about and from the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with the registered manager, the provider’s quality assurance manager, a senior care co-ordinator, a care co-ordinator and a care assistant. We contacted all care staff via email to ask for their feedback and received 4 responses.

An Expert by Experience spoke with 3 people who use the service and 11 relatives on the telephone on 26 June 2023.

We reviewed 5 people's care records, 10 people's medicine records and 4 staff recruitment files. We reviewed records and audits relating to the management of the service.

Updated 16 September 2023

About the service

Helping Hands Durham is a domiciliary care agency. The service provides personal care to younger adults and older people. It supports autistic people, those with learning and/or physical disabilities, sensory impairments, mental health needs and those living with dementia. At the time of our inspection there were 47 people receiving personal care from the service.

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

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. 'Right support, right care, right culture' is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Right Support

People received safe care and support in their own homes. Staff received training in safeguarding and knew how to protect people from the risk of abuse. People's individual risks were assessed and recorded. Staff reported accidents and incidents which were followed up appropriately and reviewed by the management team. The registered manager had effective systems and processes in place to ensure oversight of the safety and quality of the service. People and relatives were happy with the care and support provided.

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.

Right Care

When people showed behaviour which may indicate distress, staff knew how to offer care and appropriate support. Staff were recruited safely, and people received support from a small team of consistent staff wherever possible. Medicines were managed safely and effectively. People's individual choices were recognised and respected.

Right Culture

The registered manager encouraged an open and positive culture. The service was well managed and provided high quality, consistent care to people in their own homes. Effective quality monitoring systems ensured improvements were identified and acted upon for the benefit of people using the service.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was good (published 29 March 2018).

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 remains good based on the findings of this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for Helping Hands Durham 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.