Background to this inspection
Updated
12 December 2018
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the registered provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
The inspection included visits to the agency’s office on 6 and 7 November 2018. To make sure key staff were available to assist in the inspection the registered provider was given short notice of the visit, in line with our current methodology for inspecting domiciliary care agencies. An adult social care inspector carried out the inspection with the assistance of an expert by experience, who spoke with people who used the service or their relatives on the telephone. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.
To help us to plan and identify areas to focus on in the inspection we considered all the information we held about the service, such as notifications and concerns raised with us. Before the inspection, the registered provider had also completed a Provider Information Return [PIR]. This is a form that asks the registered provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well, and improvements they plan to make.
We requested the views of other agencies who worked with the service, such as service commissioners and Healthwatch Doncaster. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England.
We spoke with 13 people who used the service and six relatives, either during visits to their homes or on the telephone. We also considered the responses to the questionnaires we sent to people using the service, relatives, staff and healthcare professionals. We spoke with the registered manager, area operations manager, five members of the local management team and five care workers, either face to face at the office or on the telephone.
We looked at the system for arranging visits to people and documentation relating to people’s care and the management of the service. This included six people’s care records, how complaints, safeguarding concerns and incidents had been managed, staff recruitment and training records, and the systems in place to assess the quality of the service provision.
Updated
12 December 2018
HICA HomeCare - Doncaster is a domiciliary care agency which provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. The agency currently caters for people whose main needs are those associated with older people, including people living with dementia. People with various other needs, such as sensory impairments and learning disabilities, were also being supported. At the time of our inspection approximately 200 people were receiving personal care from the service.
The inspection took place on 6 and 7 November 2018 with the registered provider being given short notice of the visits to the office, in line with our current methodology for inspecting domiciliary care agencies. At our last inspection in March 2016 we rated the service ‘Good’. At this inspection we found the evidence continued to support the rating of ‘Good’ and there was no evidence or information from our inspection and ongoing monitoring that demonstrated serious risks or concerns.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for ‘HICA HomeCare - Doncaster’ on our website at www.cqc.org.uk’.
The service had a registered manager in post at the time of our inspection. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
Overall, people were happy with the quality of the care the service provided and how it was run, but a few people felt timings of calls and consistency of the care workers visiting them could be improved. People said care workers met their needs and delivered their care as they preferred. People told us their privacy and dignity was respected and staff were competent in their work, kind, friendly and helpful.
There were systems in place to reduce the risk of abuse and to assess and monitor potential risks to individual people. Concerns, complaints, incidents and accidents were being effectively monitored and analysed to reduce risks to people.
Recruitment processes helped the employer make safer recruitment decisions when employing staff. Staff had undertaken a structured induction, essential training, and received regular support to help develop their knowledge and skills so they could effectively meet people’s needs.
Medication was administered as prescribed by staff who had been trained to carry out this role and whose competency was checked regularly.
People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible. People had consented to their planned care and staff understood the importance of gaining people’s consent and acting in their best interest.
People had been involved in care assessments and developing their care plans. Plans provided clear guidance to staff, which assisted them to deliver the care people needed, in the way they preferred.
People were enabled to raise complaints and concerns. The people we spoke with told us they would feel comfortable raising concerns, if they had any. When concerns had been raised the correct procedure had been used to record, investigate and resolve issues.
There were systems in place to continuously assess and monitor the quality of the service. This included obtaining people’s views and checking staff were following the correct procedures.
Further information is in the detailed findings below.