MiHomecare - Tower Hamlets

Updated 8 January 2022

Inspection team

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by two Inspectors and two Experts 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.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

The service did not have a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). A registered manager is a person who is legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided. It is a requirement of the provider’s registration that they have a registered manager. The service had recently appointed a branch manager who was in the process of registering with CQC.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 hours' notice of the inspection. This was to ensure we understood the provider's infection control protocols and ensure that key staff members we needed to speak with would be in the office.

What we did before the inspection

The provider had not been asked to complete a provider information return at the time of this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

We reviewed information we held about the service, such as notifications of significant events the provider is legally required to tell us about. We spoke with two monitoring officers from the local authority which commissioned services from the provider.

The provider shared information with CQC through the capacity tracker which is a web based tool which enables providers to share information about staffing levels and the impact of COVID-19 on their services with CQC.

We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.

We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

Inspection activity began on 2 November and finished on 1 December 2021. We conducted the initial stages of the inspection using remote methods and visited the registered location on 1 December 2021. This was because the provider was undergoing a branch reorganisation and running training for staff, and therefore was unable to safely accommodate an inspection team.

We called 41 people and managed to speak with 11 people who used the service and 16 family members of people who used the service. We looked at records of care and support for 19 people who used the service and records of electronic call monitoring for 197 people during the month of October 2021. We reviewed records of recruitment and supervision for nine care workers and records relating to the management of the service, including complaints, incidents, audit and staff training.

We asked the provider to send a written survey to their staff team and received a response from 25 staff members. We spoke with the branch manager, deputy manager, one co-ordinator, the area manager and the regional head of quality.

Updated 8 January 2022

About the service

Mihomecare – Tower Hamlets is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to older people and people with physical disabilities in their homes under contract to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. At the time of our inspection there were 241 people receiving personal care from the service.

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

People told us they were treated with dignity and respect by their care workers. One person said, “They are very kind and cheer up my day.” People spoke of their care workers taking appropriate infection control measures, arriving on time and doing what was expected of them.

People reported their care workers listened to them and understood their needs and no-one felt rushed when receiving care. Some people spoke of not being able to get a care worker who spoke the language they spoke, but the provider was taking action to address this.

The majority of people we spoke with told us they had not experienced problems contacting the office, although this was not always the case, and in most cases issues were resolved promptly by managers.

There were suitable systems for providing safe care. There were enough staff recruited safely and deployed in a way which meant people’s needs were safely met. The provider identified risks to people’s wellbeing and took appropriate steps to reduce these risks.

Medicines were safely managed with systems of audit which detected any errors or recording mistakes. Staff understood their responsibilities to provide safe care and to report any issues of concern to managers.

Staff received the right training, supervision and support to carry out their roles. The service carried out spot checks of the care people received. The service assessed and met people’s needs relating to staying healthy and eating and drinking well.

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.

The service sought consent to care and made sure they were acting in people’s best interests when people could not make decisions for themselves. People’s care was planned to meet their needs, with detailed care plans which made staff told us helped them understand people’s choices and cultural needs.

The service was implementing a new standardised system for managing records and communication in the branch and this had already resulted in an improvement in the standard of documentation and oversight. Managers had a good understanding of how to engage with staff and people who used the service. The provider was open and honest when things had gone wrong and had identified areas where the service needed to improve.

For more information, please read the detailed findings section of this report. If you are reading this as a separate summary, the full report can be found on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection:

We registered this service on 19 January 2021 and this was the first inspection.

Why we inspected

We were prompted to carry out this inspection as our review of information we held about the service indicated there may be a higher level of risk associated with this service. We carried out this comprehensive inspection to examine these risks and to give the service a first rating.

Follow up

We will continue to review information we receive about the service in line with our monitoring activity which will inform when we next inspect the service.