Safe Hands Care & Support Services

Updated 11 January 2020

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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team:

The inspection was carried out by one inspector and an Expert by Experience. An Expert by Experience is someone who has personal experience and knowledge of care services. Their role was to speak with people who used the service and their relatives to obtain feedback about the care being provided.

Service and service type:

Safe Hands Care and Support Services is a ‘domiciliary care service’ It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection:

We carried out this inspection on 25 and 26 November 2019.

The inspection was announced on 22 November 2019 to ensure the inspection could be facilitated by the registered manager at the location office.

What we did:

Prior to the inspection we reviewed information and evidence we already held about this service, which had been collected via our ongoing monitoring of care services. This included notifications sent to us by the service. Notifications are changes, events or incidents that the provider is legally obliged to send to us without delay.

We also viewed the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections.

We contacted various local authorities for feedback about the service in advance of our inspection.

The first day of the inspection consisted of speaking with people who used the service and their families about the care and support they received. The second day of the inspection was spent at the main office reviewing records such as care plans, staff files, supervision/appraisal records, complaints and quality assurance documentation.

During the inspection we spoke with the registered manager, nominated individual, operations manager, five care staff, nine people who used the service and seven relatives. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

Documentation reviewed included six care plans, three staff personnel files, six medicine administration records (MAR) and other records about the management of the service to help inform our inspection judgements.

Updated 11 January 2020

About the service:

Safe Hands Care and Support Services is domiciliary care service based in Levenshulme, Manchester and provides care and support to people living in their own homes. At the time of our inspection there were 60 people using the service.

People’s experience of using this service:

People told us they felt safe using the service and staff displayed good knowledge about how to protect people from the risk of harm. People told us they received their medicines as prescribed and staff were also recruited safely, with appropriate checks carried out when their employment commenced.

There were enough staff to care for people safely, with staff and people using the service telling us current staffing arrangements were sufficient and their rotas were well managed. Accidents and incidents were monitored and any actions taken to prevent future re-occurrence were recorded.

People received the support they needed to eat and drink. Staff told us they were happy with the level of training, support and supervision available to support them in their roles.

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 said they felt treated with dignity and respect and staff promoted their independence as required.

Complaints were handled appropriately and a number of compliments were also made about the service.

Audits and quality assurance systems were in place to monitor the quality of service and there were opportunities for staff to express their views at regular team meetings. Spot checks and competency assessments of staff carrying out their work were completed.

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

Rating at last inspection:

This last inspection was in September 2018 (published November 2018) and the overall rating was requires improvement.

Why we inspected:

This was a routine comprehensive inspection and in line with our timescales for Requires Improvement rated services which is approximately 12 months from the publication date of the last report.

Follow up:

We will continue to monitor information and intelligence we receive about the service to ensure good quality care is provided to people. We will return to re-inspect in line with our inspection timescales for Good rated services, however if any information of concern is received, we may inspect sooner.