Archived: The Helping Hands Group

Updated 30 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 carried out this inspection.

Service and service type:

This service provides care and support to people living in one supported living setting, so that they can live as independently as possible. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

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:

We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection site visit because it is small and the registered manager is often out of the office supporting staff. We needed to be sure that they would be in.

What we did:

Prior to the inspection we reviewed information we held about the service to aid with our inspection planning. This included notifications. Notifications are incidents that the registered manager must notify us of. We used information the provider sent us in the Provider Information Return on 7 March 2019. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and the improvements they plan to make. We also contacted other health and social care organisations such as representatives from local authority contracting and quality improvements teams and safeguarding team. This was to ask their views about the service provided.

Questionnaires completed by a number of staff and stakeholders involved in the service were also reviewed prior to the inspection. The feedback was in the main positive. However, feedback pointed out some concerns about staffing levels at the service and a lack of staff meetings. This led the inspection team to explore these concerns.

The inspection site visit activity started and ended on 3 April 2019. We visited the office location on 3 April 2019 to see the registered manager and office staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures.

During the inspection on 3 April 2019, we spoke with one relative of the person who used the service. We also spoke with the registered manager, the office manager, a team leader and a support worker. We looked at one person’s care record and corresponding risk assessments, and monitoring records including medicine administration records. We also looked at staff records to check recruitment processes, supervisions, competency checks and training. We looked at policies and procedures, and records used in the management of the service.

Updated 30 April 2019

About the service:

The Helping Hands Group is a domiciliary care agency that provides the regulated activity of personal care to younger adults, including those with physical and learning disabilities in their own home or supported living accommodation. The service was providing personal care to one person at the time of the inspection.

People’s experience of using this service:

The care service has been developed and designed in line with the values that underpin Registering the Right Support and other best practice guidance. These values include choice, promotion of independence and inclusion. People with learning disabilities and autism using the service can live as ordinary a life as any citizen.

The service did not undertake robust recruitment checks on potential new staff to make sure they were suitable. The governance system and audits undertaken had not found the concerns identified during this inspection.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible. People and their relatives were involved in discussions about their care.

Relatives of people were happy with the care and support their family member received from staff. Staff encouraged people to complete tasks independently, or with minimal support where possible. This support from staff aimed to enable people to be as independent as possible. Staff assisted people in a caring and compassionate way.

Staff knew about safeguarding people from harm or poor care. Staff knew how to report their concerns internally and externally to local safeguarding authorities.

Staff undertook a pre-assessment on people new to the service. This established what care and support a person required and whether staff were trained to meet these needs. People and their relatives were involved in their care decisions and the planning of their day-to-day care. Staff monitored people’s assessed risks. Guidance and training was in place for staff on how to support people with these risks. This included a personal emergency evacuation plan which gave information to staff in the case of an emergency such as a fire.

Staff respected and promoted people’s dignity and privacy. People's prescribed medicines administration records were not always accurately completed by staff. People were supported by staff with their food and drinks to make sure they were eating and drinking healthily.

People’s personal information was confidentially stored within the office. There were enough staff to meet people’s needs and people received their care visits on time. People were kept safe from risks of infection and cross contamination, and new staff received an induction when new to the service. Staff received supervision and training to ensure that they could effectively carry out their role. Staff learnt lessons from incidents and near misses that happened to help reduce the risk of the incident happening again.

Staff worked with other external organisations to help support and promote people’s well-being. Staff gave people information in different formats, when needed, to help people with their understanding.

People and their relatives were given the opportunity to feedback on the quality of the service provided. People and their relatives were given information on how to raise a complaint and their concerns were listened to, investigated and resolved where possible.

Rating at last inspection: At the last inspection the service was rated good. The report was published on 4 October 2016.

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the rating at the last inspection.

Enforcement: We identified one breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 relating to fit and proper persons employed. This was because staff recruitment processes were not robust enough to ensure only suitable staff were employed. Details of action we have asked the provider to take can be found at the end of this report.

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 any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.

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