- Homecare service
Oaktree Homecare Services Limited
Report from 8 May 2025 assessment
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of Assessment: 13 May to 12 June 2025. OakTree Homecare Services Limited is a medium sized domiciliary care agency providing support to older people and adults of all ages, some were living with dementia and physical disabilities in their own homes. We inspected OakTree Homecare Services Limited as the CQC had not assessed it for some time and we had identified breaches of the legal regulations at the last inspection.
We found 3 breaches of the legal regulations at this assessment in relation to the ineffective quality monitoring of the care provided. People were not always kept safe, and there were key shortfalls in ensuring people consented to the care and treatment they received from staff and managers. No one had come to harm as a result of these issues, but there was a potential risk some people may. There were two continued breaches in relation to keeping people safe and the governance of the service, from the last inspection. The registered manager and provider had resolved some, but not all of the issues found from the 2022 inspection.
The registered manager and provider did not have a system to identify and monitor people who had high or complex risks, who received care from the service. The registered manager did not have a culture of investigating when or why people requested that named individual member of staff should not visit and provide care to them. The lack of investigations when this happened placed people at potential risk of harm. Other incidents were not investigated effectively when staff brought these incidents to the attention of the registered manager and the office staff. When people had accidents, such as falls in their homes, these were also not investigated and checked by the provider effectively to ensure people were safe and their well-being was promoted.
Risk assessments lacked information to fully explore the risks which people experienced. The associated care plans to guide and direct staff practice about how to manage these risks, also lacked sufficient information to tell staff what they must do to manage the risks and what a change of need may look like for individuals.
There were enough staff to support people and on the whole people saw regular staff. However, we found 3 people who did not see regular staff and 1 member of staff had no travel time included in their work plan. Some people helped staff out by letting them leave their care visit early so staff had enough time to get to the next care visit. The registered manager and provider did not analyse the care visit data to check and identify issues like this and then take the appropriate action.
People were not always asked their consent for staff to take photos following incidents, and when care records were updated, people did not always consent to these. When relatives had legal powers to act in their loved one’s best interests, the extent and the circumstances of these powers were not clarified and documented to help staff and managers to protect people’s rights.
The issues found during this assessment were the result of at times ineffective governance of the service by the registered manager and provider. There was not a culture or sufficient understanding of auditing the quality of the care provided which meant it was not always possible to develop or implement agreed action plans to resolve the shortfalls found. There was not a culture of being curious, asking questions and looking at situations thoroughly to check people were safe. A culture had developed of people being nervous about raising issues about the care they received.
The provider and the registered manager welcomed our feedback and said they would take actions to make improvements. The registered manager contacted us later about some of the actions they had taken following our assessment.
We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.
People's experience of this service
People and their relatives were happy with the care they received from Oaktree Homecare Services Limited. People now saw a regular group of staff at times they were satisfied with. People and their relatives said there had been improvements in recent months of seeing regular staff or the same member of staff. One person’s relative said, “The regular carers are really good, (name of relative) likes them and we don’t worry when they are there.” Another person’s relative said, “They (Oaktree homecare) had improved a lot over the last 8 months.” This person’s relative also told us their relative gets on well with their carers now, as they had got to know each other, and the carers are very kind to their relative. A person told us, “I’d like to mention 2 of our regular carers. They are very good and very caring’. (Name of member of staff) is like a model carer.”
However, people were very protective of their regular carers and were reluctant to raise a complaint about the practice of non-regular staff or issues in general with the care provided, in case they lost their regular member of staff.
People felt the staff who visited them were caring and respectful. Although, some concerns were raised to us about some previous practices of some individual staff, which no one had raised to the registered manager and provider at the time. The provider and registered manager needed to work with people and their relatives to give them confidence to raise issues so they can take appropriate action.