Allcare

Allcare is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people in their own homes. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where people receive personal care we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of the inspection the service was supporting a total of 27 people, all of whom received support with personal care.

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

People told us they felt safe and were happy with the service they received. The registered manager and staff were aware of their responsibility to raise safeguarding concerns and liaise with the local authority. The registered manager worked well with the local authority, CQC and other professionals. Safeguarding incidents, and complaints were investigated, and formal apologies had been provided.

Due to reasons outside the provider's control they had been delayed in providing information requested to help us evaluate how well they monitored the service. Review of the providers systems to assess and monitor the quality and safety of the service found these needed developing to ensure they were effective at identifying and driving improvement within the service.

At our previous inspection in April 2021 the provider's system used to arrange, and monitor visit times was not being utilised effectively to ensure people were receiving a consistent and reliable service. Analysis of a spreadsheet of planned vs actual visits for the month of June 2022 confirmed people were receiving a satisfactory service. Staff were allocated the same people in a geographical area to ensure consistency and reduce travel time and delays due to traffic. People and their relatives confirmed staff were usually were on time, within the agreed timeframe. Where on the odd occasion carers were running late people told us they were called to let them know.

People and their relatives told, us the registered manager and office staff were approachable when they contacted the office and responded to requests for information. Complaints were investigated and responded to in a timely manner.

Medicines and risks to people who used the service were managed safely.

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 Good (published 20 April 2021). At our last inspection we recommended the provider needed to review its use of technology to improve the promptness of calls and drive improvements. At this inspection we found improvements had been made to ensure people received their calls within the expected timeframe.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. This was an ‘inspection using remote technology’. This means we did not visit the office location and instead used technology such as electronic file sharing to gather information, and phone calls to engage with people using the service as part of this performance review and assessment.

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 remained the same based on the findings of this inspection.

Follow up

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

Allcare is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people in their own homes. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where people receive personal care we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of the inspection the service was supporting a total of 37 people, all of whom received support with personal care.

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

Overall people were happy with the care and support they received and the staff supporting them. However, people and their relatives raised issues about early, late or occasional missed calls. A lack of communication about delays was an added factor. The registered manager provided information to reflect the service employed enough staff to meet the demands of the service. However, the system used to arrange, and monitor visit times was not being utilised effectively to ensure people were receiving a consistent and reliable service.

We have made a recommendation about effective governance and oversight of the service.

People told us they felt safe using the service. Where people needed support with medicines, access to healthcare and to eat and drink this was managed well. People and their relatives told us the service had overall managed the COVID-19 pandemic well.

The registered manager told us recruitment of new staff during the COVID -19 pandemic had been challenging but had they had worked hard to ensure staff recruited were suitable to work with people who used the service. Staff received a wide range of training which gave them the skills and knowledge to carry out their roles and applied this learning effectively which led to people receiving good quality care.

People were treated with dignity, respect and kindness. Staff understood their responsibilities to respect people’s right to privacy, confidentiality and to promote their independence. 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. Peoples communication needs had been assessed and their needs recorded in their care and support plans. These detailed how each person communicated, and aids used to assist communication.

No one using the service required end of life care at the time of this inspection. The service had received four compliments thanking staff for the care and support provided to people on end of life care before they had sadly passed away.

Systems were in place to ensure lessons were learned and improvements made when things went wrong. Safeguarding incidents, and complaints were investigated, and formal apologies had been provided.

Rating at last inspection

Allcare was previously registered with CQC as an individual provider in October 2010. On 31 January 2020 the provider changed their legal entity from an individual provider to a limited company, All Plus Care Ltd with this one location, Allcare, and this will be the first inspection. The last inspection of Allcare under the previous registration was undertaken on12 December 2016. The overall rating was Good.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection to check the safety and quality of the care people received.

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

Follow up

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.