Archived: Helping Hands & Company

Updated 14 May 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:

The inspection was carried out by one adult social care inspector and an expert by experience. An expert by experience is someone who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Service and service type:

Helping Hands and Company is a domiciliary care provider. This means that they provide personal care to people in their own homes.

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 visit as we needed to be sure that they would be available to talk with us.

Inspection site visit activity was on 16 April 2019. We visited the office location to see the registered manager and to review care records and policies and procedures.

What we did:

Before we inspected Helping Hands and Company, we reviewed the information we already held about the service. We looked at notifications. Notifications are sent to us by the service to tell us about significant events.

We reviewed the Provider Information Return. The provider completes this at least once every year to tell us what the service is doing well and about any plans to improve.

During our inspection we spoke with three support workers, one supervisor, the registered manager and an administrative assistant. We also spoke with five people who use the service and four relatives of people who use the service.

We reviewed records maintained by the service including records of accidents, incidents and complaints, audits and quality assurance reports, health and safety monitoring, four peoples care records and two staff recruitment files.

We requested additional documents from the registered manager and these were provided within the required timescale.

Updated 14 May 2019

About the service:

Helping Hands and Company is a domiciliary care agency that was providing personal care to 18 people at the time of our inspection.

People’s experience of using this service:

People were cared for safely and by staff who were suitably trained and had completed an in-depth induction. Risks were assessed and care plans regularly reviewed.

People told us they felt safe and cared for and that staff and the registered manager were approachable and helpful.

Staff were provided with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as gloves , aprons and anti-bacterial hand gel to minimise the risks to people from infection.

The provider communicated well with healthcare professionals such as district nurses who supported them in providing consistent care.

People told us that staff providing care were very respectful and were good at ensuring privacy and maintaining dignity.

The provider was flexible and had been able to meet people’s preferences of call times and by being able to respond to changes at short notice.

There was a complaints policy and procedure however there had been no complaints. Any low-level concerns were dealt with at the time of being raised by the registered manager.

The provider supported people at the end of life in partnership with medical professionals. Support was also provided to relatives who were welcome to stay in touch with the service for as long as they needed.

People and staff told us that the registered manager was supportive and approachable.

The registered manager had clear oversight of the service and had audit systems in place to support this.

The registered manager had forged close links with a local care home and worked closely with district nurses in the provision of holistic care.

Helping Hands and Company met the characteristics of good in all areas. More information is in the full report.

Rating at last inspection: The provider of this service changed in April 2018 however the registered manager and nominated individual remained the same. Our previous inspection, report published on 13 December 2016 had rated the service as good.

Why we inspected:

We inspected the service as part of our inspection schedule methodology for ‘Good’ rated services.

Follow up:

We will continue to monitor the service and will reinspect according to our reinspection schedule for services that are rated as good.

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