Archived: Angels Community Homecare Services

Updated 24 August 2015

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection took place on 10 and 16 June 2015 and was announced to ensure staff would be available to answer any questions we had or provide information that we needed. The inspection was carried out by one inspector.

We reviewed the information we held about the service including notifications of incidents that the provider had sent us. Notifications are reports that the provider is required to send to us to inform us about incidents that have happened at the service, such as accidents or a serious injury.

We liaised with the local authority and Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to identify areas we may wish to focus upon in the planning of this inspection. The CCG is responsible for buying local health services and checking that services are delivering the best possible care to meet the needs of people.

We spoke with two people who used the service, four relatives, five care staff, the manager and provider. We reviewed a range of records about people’s care and how the service was managed. This included looking closely at the care provided to three people by reviewing their care records, we reviewed three staff recruitment records, the staff training matrix, medication records and quality assurance audits. We looked at policies and procedures which related to safety aspects of the service.

Updated 24 August 2015

This announced inspection took place on 10 and 16 June 2015. The provider had a short amount of notice that an inspection would take place so we could ensure staff would be available to answer any questions we had or provide information that we needed.

Angels Community Homecare Services is registered to deliver personal care. They provide care to people who live in their own homes within the community. At the time of our inspection 21 people received personal care from the provider.

At our last inspection in January 2015 the provider was not meeting the regulations which related to safeguarding people who used the service, requirements relating to workers and assessing and monitoring the quality of service provision. Evidence that we gathered during this, our most recent inspection, showed that some improvements had been made but further improvements were needed.

The registered manager had left the service in December 2014. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The provider had appointed a new manager in May 2015 who told us that they were in the process of applying for registration with us.

People we spoke with told us that they felt safe. We saw that there were systems in place to protect people from the risk of abuse, including safe recruitment processes.

We found that medicines management within the service were safe; however recording of the timing of when people were supported to take their medicines was inconsistent.

There were a suitable amount of staff available to meet people’s needs in a timely manner, with the appropriate skills, experience and training. Staff told us that they were being provided with the training that they required.

Structures for supervision allowing staff to understand their roles and responsibilities were in place.

Systems were not always effective in demonstrating people’s level of mental capacity and/or any potential risks for staff to consider. The manager showed us a new system that was currently being implemented to improve and to develop more consistency in care records for staff to refer to.

Staff maintained people’s privacy and dignity whilst encouraging them to remain as independent as possible. People and their relatives told us they were happy with the way the service communicated with them.

Feedback was sought from people and their relatives. The manager told us that on receipt of any negative comments, they had contacted the person and resolved any issues they raised; however they were unable to demonstrate this to us as they had not appropriately documented, analysed or outlined any plans for improvements as a result.

Care was planned with people and their relative’s involvement; care plans were not always detailed enough in respect of people’s disabilities and/or failed to outline their medical conditions clearly for staff to be aware of.

Information was provided for people about how to make a complaint. People and their relatives told us they felt confident that any concerns or complaints they made would be dealt with appropriately.

Staff told us they felt supported by the manager and provider. Systems were in place to regularly to develop and involve staff through supervision and staff meetings.

We found that the provider had made improvements to how they monitored and quality assured the service provided. However, we identified a number of areas that required improvement to ensure these systems were more robust.