Archived: True Care

True Care is a small domiciliary care agency based in the hamlet of Gatebeck near to Kendal. It offers a range of services for people in their own homes. The service provides support with personal care and domestic tasks to help maintain independence for people living in and around the rural areas near to the town Kendal.

There was a registered manager in post on the day of our inspection visit. 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. In this service the registered manager is also the registered provider.

During this inspection we found two breaches of Regulations 19 Fit and proper persons employed and 18 Staffing of the Health and Social Care Act (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2015.

Although people told us that they felt safe receiving care and support from this service we found information recorded in relation to the administrations of medicines was not always accurate.

The recruitment process for new staff did not include all the required checks to ensure that they were suitable for the work and help to protect people from the risk of abuse.

There were enough staff to provide the care people required. Staff had completed some training but not in all of the essential areas to ensure that they had the appropriate skills to provide safe care and treatment. Staff knew how to identify and report concerns about a person’s safety

People received support from a regular team of staff who they knew and who understood the care and support people required. We saw that people were treated with kindness and respect and they made positive comments about the staff who visited their homes.

People had been included in agreeing to the support they received and were asked for their views about the service. The registered manager was knowledgeable about the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and about their responsibility to protect the rights of people who could not make important decisions about their own lives.

Staff felt very supported by the registered manager and said they were confident and very happy with the leadership and management of the service.

We recommended that the provider ensured that the support people required with their medications was accurately recorded and that they followed the guidance from The British Pharmaceutical Society as described in The Safe Handling Of Medicines in Social Care.

We recommended that True Care provided it’s staff with care plans and records relating to their own care when providing care in partnership with another provider.

You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of this report.

We contacted, after obtaining their permission, people who used this agency. We did this to ask them about their experiences of using the service and the support and care the agency had provided. We also spoke with the provider and care staff who worked for the agency about their work and training.

People who used the agency told us they received "very good" and "excellent and reliable" care and support from "helpful" care staff. We were told that the service provided to people was a "very personal" one. One person told us, "I'm very impressed with what they have to offer, they always treat me as an individual".

We found at this inspection that care plans were detailed and written in a person centred manner and based on a comprehensive needs and risk assessment. We saw that risk assessments were in place for equipment that was used to support people in their homes.

We saw that people's needs were not always identified or appropriately risk assessed. One person's care plan we looked at did not include any risk assessments for equipment used to support their care.

People we spoke with who used the service said they felt safe receiving care from the agency. We were told, "They (staff) are helpful and pleasant and we have no concerns."

Since the service was registered in February this year there had not been any formal surveys completed with service users and or relatives. The manager told us that people's feedback on their experiences would be collected at some point in the near future.

We saw policies and procedures were in place for managing complaints. People were given information in the service user's guide about what to do if they needed to make a complaint.