Archived: Coastal Home Care Services

Coastal Home Care Services is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people living in their own homes within Lancaster and Morecambe and surrounding areas. At the time of the inspection 14 people were receiving a 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

Although people told us they felt safe, we found staff practice did not always promote safety. People’s medicines were not consistently managed in a safe way. Deployment of staff was not always effective to ensure visits took place as scheduled. Staff recruitment checks were not always carried out in a timely manner. People’s individual risk was not always effectively addressed and managed.

The service was not always well-led. Oversight of the service was inconsistent and identified concerns were not always addressed in a timely manner. We found record keeping was not always accurate, up to date, available and reflective of care provided.

People told us when they required support with eating and drinking their dietary needs were met. Although staff had received some training, we could not be assured training had been completed to the required standard by suitably qualified professionals. We raised these concerns with the registered person who advised us improvements to staff training were underway. Staff said they were appropriately supported within their role.

People told us they were able to make choices about their care and support and said they received care tailored to their needs. Although people told us they received person centred care, we saw no consideration had been taken to ensure information was available in a variety of formats. We have made a recommendation about this. The service had a complaints policy for managing complaints. We were told complaints were taken seriously and addressed in a timely manner.

People told us staff were kind and caring. They told us they were able to build positive relationships with staff. The registered person said they were proud of the way in which relationships were nurtured within the service.

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.

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)

This service was registered with us on 24/10/2018 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about the lack of management oversight within the service. A decision was made for us to inspect and examine those risks.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.

Following the inspection, we fed back our key concerns to the registered person.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Coastal Home Care Services on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.