Maisy Care at Home Ltd

Maisy Care at Home Ltd is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to 6 people at the time of the inspection. The service provides support to adults over and under 65 years, people with learning disabilities, mental health conditions, dementia, physical disabilities, sensory impairment, and children between 0 and 18 years.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. 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

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

At the time of the inspection, the location did not care or support for anyone with a learning disability or an autistic person. However, we assessed the care provision under Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture, as it is registered as a specialist service for this population group.

Right Support: People’s medicines were not being managed safely. It was not clear in people’s records what support they needed with medicines and people’s records did not reflect all the medicines being administered by staff. Staff had received training on medicines management and had their competence checked, however, dates of this check were not recorded.

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 had been given training on safeguarding and knew how to report any concerns. The registered manager also understood their role in keeping people safe and reporting concerns to the local authority.

Right Care: Risks to people’s safety had not all been identified so management plans could be put in place. Where there were risk management plans in place these lacked details about how to help and support people safely.

People told us care staff were kind and caring and respected their privacy. People also told us they had care which maintained their dignity at all times but particularly when receiving personal care.

Right Culture: People told us they knew the registered manager and would not hesitate to share any concerns. People told us the registered manager was approachable and listened to them. Staff also told us they had regular contact with the registered manager and felt able to share ideas or raise issues.

Governance systems were not effective in identifying shortfalls found during this inspection. We found inaccurate records which the provider had not identified. Recruitment had not been managed safely. Not all the pre-employment checks had been carried out.

People told us staff were reliable and they felt safe with them in their homes. There were enough staff available to support the people at this service. The registered manager told us they had kept the service small, so they had time to recruit new staff. Once staff were recruited, they planned to grow the service gradually.

Staff had received training but there were gaps in their skills and knowledge. We have made a recommendation about training. Spot checks were carried out to make sure staff were punctual and following people’s care plans.

People’s needs were assessed prior to any care packages starting. These assessments helped to produce a fuller care plan. People told us they had care plans in their homes and could read them if they wished. The provider was in the process of moving care records to a new electronic system which meant all records were being reviewed during this process.

People who needed support for eating or drinking had this information recorded in their care plan. Staff provided support for preparing a light meal or heating up a meal if needed.

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 15 June 2021, and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

Enforcement and Recommendations

We have identified breaches in relation to recruitment of staff, medicines management, risk management and ineffective governance systems at this inspection. Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Full information about CQC’s regulatory response to the more serious concerns found during inspections is added to reports after any representations and appeals have been concluded.

We have also made 1 recommendation about training.

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.