Ohio Home Care Limited

Updated 10 January 2023

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. 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 Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

This 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 service.

Service and service type

Ohio Home Care Limited is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the provider two days notice because we needed to ensure they would be available to assist us with the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 11 October and ended on 8 November 2022. We requested a range of documents that were sent to us by the provider between 13 October and 9 November 2022. We visited the office location on 13 October 2022 to see the registered manager and deputy manager and to review further records related to the service. We made calls to people and their relatives between 18 October and 2 November 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. This included any significant incidents that occurred at the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make.

We contacted two local authority commissioning teams and also reviewed the previous inspection report. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We reviewed a range of records related to 8 people’s care and support. This included people’s care plans, risk assessments, medicines records for 3 people and 5 staff files in relation to recruitment and training. We reviewed records related to the management of the service, which included training records, safeguarding incidents, complaints, quality assurance records and a range policies and procedures.

We also reviewed electronic call monitoring (ECM) data for 52 people for the month of September 2022. An ECM system is where care workers log in and out of their calls, and the information is recorded.

We spoke with 2 staff members. This included the registered manager and the deputy manager.

We contacted a number of care workers, via email and telephone. We also asked the registered manager to share a questionnaire with all active care workers to give them an opportunity to give us feedback about their experience of working for the service. We only received feedback from 4 care workers.

We contacted 20 people and managed to speak with 5 people and 11 relatives.

We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found after the inspection. We looked at further quality assurance records, training records, medicines competency assessments and samples of daily log records. We also had a follow up telephone call with the registered manager on 27 October 2022 to discuss feedback we had received from people and relatives.

We provided formal feedback to the registered manager and deputy manager via email on 8 November

Updated 10 January 2023

About the service

Ohio Home Care Limited is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to younger disabled adults, older people, including people living with dementia. 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 the inspection 80 people were receiving personal care.

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

We received mixed feedback from people and their relatives about the care and support they received, which showed levels of care and communication was not always consistent across the service.

The majority of feedback was positive about the kind and caring attitude of staff and people and their relatives felt their regular staff knew them well and had developed positive working relationships.

However, issues were raised related to timekeeping and how the management dealt with concerns and complaints. There were inconsistencies with the effectiveness of communication with the management team.

Whilst risks to people's safety were assessed, control measures and guidance for staff to follow to manage these risks were not always recorded to highlight how people could be supported safely. After discussions with the provider, the relevant information was sent to us after the inspection.

There were some inconsistencies with the information recorded in people’s daily logs which meant important details and information related to care and support had not always been recorded.

People were supported by staff who enjoyed working for the company and spoke positively about their working environment and the support they received.

There were monitoring and auditing systems in place to identify any issues with the quality of the service.

The provider told us that the COVID-19 pandemic had brought about a range of challenges within the health and social sector, including the recruitment and retention of staff, especially within the current cost of living crisis. They acknowledged where improvements needed to be made.

Despite attempting contact with a large number of the care staff, we only heard back from a small sample, which was not fully representative of a service of this size with 50 active care staff. The provider told us this had been a challenge and had encouraged staff to engage with us as part of the inspection process.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible. The policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people. We considered this guidance as there was one person using the service who has a learning disability and/or who are autistic.

We have made two recommendations about care planning and risk management records and the management of complaints.

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 2019).

Why we inspected

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

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.