Home First - South Staffordshire

Updated 17 July 2019

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 a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. In this case their area of expertise was caring for someone with dementia.

Service and service type:

Home First-South Staffordshire is a short-term enablement service for people living in the local area. The service supports adults who have experienced a period of poor health to maximise or regain their independence and supports people with their personal care needs.

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 gave the service three working days’ notice of the inspection site visit because it is small and the manager may often be out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.

What we did:

We used the information we held about the service, including statutory notifications, to plan our inspection. A statutory notification is information about events that by law the registered persons should tell us about; for example, safeguarding concerns, serious injuries, and deaths that have occurred at the service. We also used information the provider sent to us in the Provider Information Return (PIR) to formulate our inspection. plan. A PIR is key information we require from providers on an annual basis giving us key information about the service.

We spoke with five people who use the service, two relatives of people who use the service, five members of staff and the registered manager. We also spoke with a health professional who works with the service.

Following the site visit the registered manger and a member of staff sent us information that was not available during the inspection.

Updated 17 July 2019

About the service:

Home First is a short-term enablement service for people living in the South Staffordshire area. The service supports adults with health and social needs to maximise or regain their independence. At the time of our inspection, the service was supporting 18 people living in their own homes.

People’s experience of using this service:

People told us they felt safe. Staff had the knowledge and skills to provide people with safe care and they knew how to protect them from the risk of potential abuse. Risks to people’s health and safety were managed. People were supported by sufficient numbers of staff who had been recruited safely. People got their medicines as prescribed. People were protected from the risks of infection. Lessons were learnt when things went wrong.

People received support from staff who had been inducted and trained to ensure they were in receipt of effective care. Staff sought the advice of healthcare professionals when people’s health deteriorated. People had sufficient food and drink to meet their nutritional needs.

People and their relatives told us they were supported by staff who were kind and compassionate. Staff spoke with fondness about the people they cared for. Staff understood the importance of protecting people’s privacy and dignity. Staff encouraged people to be as independent as possible.

People received care that was responsive to their individual needs. People told us they knew how to complain and would be listened to if they needed to. The provider had a system in place if people needed to complain.

Improvements were needed in the recording of people’s care needs. We have made a recommendation for the provider to include more information in people’s records. People told us they were happy with the care they received and would recommend the service to others. People told us the care they had received had met their goals of becoming more independent. The provider had an effective system which monitored the care people received and when problems were identified action was taken to ensure lessons were learnt.

Rating at last inspection:

This is the first inspection for this location.

Why we inspected:

This was a scheduled inspection.

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