About the service Harlington Care is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care and support to people living in their own homes. 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 service 29 people were supported with personal care. The majority of people were older adults, although the service was available for any adults needing support.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People were happy with the service. They had been involved in planning their care, they felt care was well planned and they told us their needs were met. People using the service and their families liked the staff and had regular care workers who they had good relationships with and knew them well.
The agency worked as part of a multidisciplinary team providing end of life care. This meant they were able to help ensure best practice when supporting people, and their families, at the end of their lives and afterwards.
The staff were well supported. They enjoyed working at the service and enjoyed their work caring for people. They had the training and information they needed and felt the registered manager was helpful and approachable. There were effective systems to make sure only suitable staff were employed and regular checks on their competencies, skills and knowledge.
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.
There were suitable systems for the management of the service. These including investigating accidents, incidents, complaints and allegations of abuse. There was evidence of learning from these to improve the service. There were also regular audits.
The provider was a member of a number of multi-agency groups providing care and advice to people needing support within North West London.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
This was the first inspection of the service since the provider was registered at this location on 15 March 2021. The rating for the previous registration of this service was good (published 19 December 2020).
Why we inspected
This was a planned inspection based on the date of registration.
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 video and phone calls to engage with people using the service as part of this performance review and assessment.
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.