Magic Helping Hands

Magic Helping Hands is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to 140 people in their own homes. Support is provided to older people and younger adults, people with dementia and people with a physical and sensory disability. Support is also provided for people with a learning disability and autistic people.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

The service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting most of the underpinning principles of Right support, right care, right culture.

Right culture

People were supported by staff who understood the wide range of strengths, impairments, or sensitivities people with a learning disability and/or autistic people may have. However, the provider acknowledged they needed to improve the way the service used language to describe people to ensure people were always empowered and respected.

We have made a recommendation about seeking good practice guidance in relation to language.

The provider needed some improvement to the way the service evaluated the quality of support provided to people. There were systems in place to understand what was happening in the service, but they needed to be used more effectively to provide oversight of the service. The registered manager did not currently have any external support to help them to monitor the quality of care being provided.

We have made a recommendation about auditing processes and support for the registered manager in their management role.

People and those important to them, including advocates, were involved in planning their care.

Right Support

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.

People and their families told us the service enabled people to have a good quality of life. Staff focused on people’s strengths and promoted what they could do, so people had a fulfilling and meaningful everyday life. Staff supported people to take part in activities and pursue their interests.

People’s care and support plans reflected their range of needs, and this promoted their wellbeing and enjoyment of life. Staff enabled people to access health and social care support and worked with them and their families to access health and social care support and appointments.

Staff supported people with their medicines in a way that promoted their independence and achieved the best possible health outcome. Staff followed the providers infection prevention control policy and wore personal protective equipment to keep people safe.

Right Care

People received kind and compassionate care. Staff treated people with respect and dignity. They knew people well and responded to their individual needs.

People who had individual ways of communicating, such as body language, sounds, Makaton (a form of sign language), pictures and symbols could interact comfortably with staff and others involved in their care. Staff had the necessary skills to understand them.

Staff had relevant training and knowledge in how to protect people from poor care and abuse. The service worked well with other agencies to keep people safe.

The service had enough appropriately skilled staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe. The provider worked effectively to reduce the impact of challenges in staff recruitment.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 17 December 2019).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service and to follow up the areas that required improvement from the last inspection. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, effective, and well led only.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.

At our last inspection we recommended that improvements were needed to end of life care and oral health care. At this inspection we found the provider had acted on the recommendations and improvements had been made.

The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Magic Helping Hands on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

Magic Helping Hands a provides personal care and support. At the time of the inspection they were supporting one person.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People received their medicine at the right time and in the right way. However, the medicines policy needed to be updated to reflect current practice. Improvements were needed to way the service recorded when someone needed Pro Re Nata (PRN) medicine or if medicine was administered covertly.

Staff had access to protective equipment and had been trained in infection control. There was a lack of information or guidance for staff about how to protect themselves and others from the potential risk of infection when there was the possibility of encountering an infectious disease.

Staff had completed training in the Mental Capacity Act, however some improvement was needed to the way these decisions were recorded, when they applied in practice.

The service was not delivering end of life care to people. Assessments and care plans were in place. Oral care and Behaviour support plans (BSP) were being developed. We have made a recommendation around end of life and oral health care.

The registered manager had not considered how the accessible communication standards could be applied and needed to ensure that people had access to information in different formats which met their needs.

Staff knew how to raise concerns correctly, but systems needed to be developed so that learning could be shared among the team. The registered manager completed a range of risk assessments, which were person centred and detailed. There were enough staff to deliver care to people, and systems were in place to monitor the frequency of late or missed care calls.

Staff were experienced and had previously worked in the health and social care sector. Since starting with Magic Helping Hands, a range of training had been provided to them. Staff were supported with an induction and had regular supervision. Detailed information relating to people’s health needs had been retained on file, and professionals involved with the service spoke positively about the staff and the service people received.

People’s relatives and professionals told us staff were compassionate, kind and caring toward the people they supported. Policies and procedures were in place to ensure that complaints would be dealt with effectively.

The registered provider understood the requirements of their registration. They were committed to continuous learning and professional development to ensure best practice. Quality assurance audits had been prepared to measure the quality and safety of the service people received.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 21 December 2018 and this is the first inspection.

Follow up

We will request an action plan for the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.