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Alpha Health & Care Services Limited

Overall: Requires improvement read more about inspection ratings

The Link Business Centre, Suite 8, Tylers House, 5 Tylers Avenue, Southend-on-sea, SS1 2BB (01268) 928787

Provided and run by:
Alpha Health & Care Services Limited

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 15 April 2023

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. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection team consisted of 2 inspectors and 1 Expert by Experience. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. 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.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 8 March 2023 and ended on 10 March 2023. We visited the location’s office on 8 March 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We reviewed the last provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

During the inspection we spoke with 12 people and 5 relatives. We spoke with 5 members of staff including the registered manager and director.

We reviewed a range of records. This included 6 people’s support records. We reviewed 5 staff records in relation to recruitment, training and supervision. We also reviewed the service’s medicine and quality assurance arrangements.

Overall inspection

Requires improvement

Updated 15 April 2023

About the service

Alpha Health and Care Services Limited provides personal care and support to people who require assistance in their own home. At the time of our inspection approximately 59 people were being supported by the service. 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

Feedback on the service was varied. We received mostly negative feedback on the timings of care calls and people were unsure how long carers should stay and did not know in advance which carers would be visiting them. One person said, “I have a good rapport with the carers, but they never come for more than two days and it could be a different carer every visit which means they never get to know me.”

Care and treatment was not recorded in detail or person-centred way to provide safe support to people. Care plans and risk assessments did not contain enough guidance to staff to mitigate risks to people. Medicine practices needed to improve to insure people were supported safely. Recruitment processes needed to be more robust to ensure the safe recruitment of staff.

The registered manager had not implemented effective systems to provide oversight of the service to monitor and improve care. Care needed to be planned in a more person-centred way to ensure people had the support they wanted.

The registered manager had an action plan in place they were working towards to improve outcomes for people and provide an effective oversight of the service.

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

Rating at last inspection was requires improvement (published 15 May 2021.) The overall rating for the service has remained requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection. This service has been rated requires improvement for the last 3 consecutive inspections.

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to the safe care of people. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

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

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in relation to safe care and treatment, including medicines management and good governance at this inspection.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to the more serious concerns found during inspections is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded.

Follow up

We will meet with the provider following this report being published to discuss how they will make changes to ensure they improve their rating to at least good. We will work with the local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.