Access 24/7 Healthcare Ltd

About the service

Access 24/7 Healthcare Limited is a domiciliary care service providing the regulated activity of personal and nursing care to people in their own homes. The service provides support to both children and adults.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. At the time of our inspection there were 26 people using the service, of which 23 people were receiving the regulated activity of personal care.

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

Right Support:

Staff supported people with their medicines, but improvements were required to ensure they received these as prescribed.

Staff supported people to make decisions following best practice in decision-making. Staff communicated with people in ways that met their needs.

Right Care:

Although staff had received appropriate training on how to recognise and report abuse, people were not protected from abuse and harm. Improvements were required to ensure investigations were robust.

People were not supported by staff who had received all relevant training. This included training for people with a learning disability and autistic people.

The service had enough staff to meet people’s needs and keep them safe.

Risks to people were identified, assessed, and recorded.

Right Culture:

The registered manager had the knowledge and experience to perform their role but did not have effective oversight of the service they managed.

The management of records was not effective.

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 24 August 2022].

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to people’s nursing care needs. 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 Good to Requires Improvement based on the findings of this inspection.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the relevant key questions of Safe, Effective and Well-Led of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Access24/7 Healthcare Limited on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in relation to safeguarding, medicines management, recruitment practices, staff training, induction and supervision and the provider’s quality assurance arrangements at this inspection.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

Access 24/7 Health Care is a domiciliary care agency providing personal and nursing care to adults and children in their own homes. At the time of this inspection, 23 people were receiving personal/nursing care. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided.

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

Relatives told us their loved ones received safe care. Risks to people’s health, safety and well being had been assessed and managed. Staff knew people well and were provided with guidance and support from the management team and clinical leads at Access 24/7 Health Care.

Safeguarding systems were in place and staff knew how to report any concerns they had. One said, “If I saw something, I would report to my manager, if I did not feel listened to, I would go to the police, find out who the local authority was.”

Medicines were managed safely and administered by trained members of staff.

Staff had access to personal protective equipment (PPE) and there were effective infection prevention and control measures in place, including up to date Covid-19 policy and procedure.

People’s needs were assessed and reviewed regularly due to their complex care needs. Care plans were detailed, personalised and people’s wishes’ and preferences were reflected. Relatives told us they had been involved in the planning of their loved one’s care.

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.

Staff were described by relatives as brilliant, kind, caring, great and trusting. Staff had received training to carry out their roles competently and the senior management team carried out spot checks, competency checks, supervisions and appraisals to further support staff.

The management team were committed to providing a high-quality service to people with a strive to continuous improvement. Systems were in place to monitor the quality of the service people received.

The registered manager understood their responsibilities and worked in an open and transparent way. Relatives were aware of how to approach the registered manager to raise concerns or complaints. One relative said, “[Name], always listens to my views.” Another said, “[Name] outshines and is one in a million.”

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 6 January 2021 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the registration date.

Follow up

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