We carried out a review of the data available to us about Agincare UK Weymouth on 6 July 2023. We have not found evidence that we need to carry out an inspection or reassess our rating at this stage.
This could change at any time if we receive new information. We will continue to monitor data about this service.
If you have concerns about Agincare UK Weymouth, you can give feedback on this service.
Agincare UK Weymouth is a domiciliary care service providing a regulated activity of personal care to younger people and adults. At the time of our inspection there were 127 people using the service.
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.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
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 were people using the service who have a learning disability and or who are autistic.
Right Support
People told us they felt safe. They were protected from avoidable harm as staff were trained to recognise signs of abuse and knew who to report this to if they had concerns.
People received safe care because staff had a good awareness of the specific risks people faced and how to manage these without being restrictive. People’s risk assessments gave staff clear guidance on how to work alongside them to manage their health conditions.
There were enough staff to meet people’s needs. It was recognised the service had faced the same challenges as other providers due to the national shortage of care workers. Recruitment was ongoing.
The service had a robust recruitment and selection process that helped ensure only prospective staff with the required skills and good character were employed to support people.
Right Care
Medicines were managed safely by staff who had received the relevant training and competency assessments. Medicines records were regularly audited and appropriate action taken where omissions had occurred.
Accidents and incidents were appropriately reported, investigated and analysed to determine any themes and trends. Lessons learnt were shared to help prevent a recurrence.
We were assured with the service’s processes to prevent and control infection. People and relatives confirmed staff wore personal protective equipment (PPE) when appropriate.
The service had robust quality assurance procedures which included various audits, at branch and provider level, and regular staff competency checks. This helped ensure the quality of care was maintained and any issues were identified and resolved promptly.
Right Culture
People’s, relative’s and staff member’s views were sought in annual surveys. The majority of feedback was positive. The provider used feedback to drive improvement in the service people received. This included actions to improve visit scheduling and communication from the office when people’s visit schedules changed.
Staff told us they got on well with their colleagues and felt supported. Staff were supported with continuous professional development including apprenticeships and vocational qualifications. The registered manager and branch manager felt supported by the area manager and other provider staff.
People told us they would recommend the service to others.
The service had established and maintained positive working relationships with other agencies including occupational therapists, social work teams and GP surgeries.
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 23 January 2018).
Why we inspected
This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.
For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has remained good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Agincare UK Weymouth on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.
This announced inspection took place on 28 and 30 November 2017 and 5 December. We gave the service three days’ notice of the inspection site visits. These days included a weekend. We gave the service notice to ensure the manager would be available and that people could be supported to make decisions about taking part in the inspection.
At our last inspection in June and July 2016 we identified a breach of regulation. This breach was in respect of how information was used to improve the safety and quality of the service. At this inspection we checked to see if the provider had made the improvements necessary to meet the requirements of the regulation. We found that information received was used effectively to ensure improvements to the safety and quality of the service people received.
There was a registered manager for the service. 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
People were happy with their care. They felt supported to maintain their independence and were confident in the skills of the staff team. They told us staff were kind and cheerful.
Staff were consistent in their knowledge of people’s care needs and spoke with confidence about the support people needed to meet these needs. They told us they felt supported in their roles and had taken training that provided them with the necessary knowledge and skills. There was a robust plan in place to ensure staff received refresher training as deemed necessary by the provider.
People felt safe. They were protected from harm because staff understood the risks people faced and how to reduce these risks. Measures to reduce risk reflected the person’s preferences. Staff also knew how to identify and respond to abuse.
People told us they received the care and support they needed. They also told us they were supported to maintain their health by staff including support to access health professionals when this was appropriated. People received their medicines as they were prescribed.
Where people had received end of life care feedback from relatives was consistent in its acknowledgement of the kindness and compassion of the staff team in ensuring their loved ones wishes and needs were met.
People described the support they received with food and drink as satisfactory or good and there were systems in place to ensure people had enough to eat and drink if this was necessary.
People had support, care and time from staff who had been safely recruited. People told us they usually received this support and care at times that suited them and we saw that efforts were made to accommodate people’s needs and preferences regarding the time of visits.
Staff understood how people consented to the care they provided and encouraged people to make decisions about their lives. Care plans reflected that care was being delivered within the framework of the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
There were systems in place to ensure that the quality and safety of care people received was monitored and improved. People and staff contributed to these processes both formally and informally.
There was 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
This was the first inspection since the service registered in September 2014.
Staff understood how people made choices about the care they received, and encouraged people to make decisions about their care. Care plans did not always reflect that care was being delivered within the framework of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. However, staff showed they understood the importance of enabling people to make their own decisions wherever possible and providing care that was in a person’s best interests.
There were systems in place to monitor and improve quality but these were not always used effectively and opportunities to improve the service people received were missed as a result.
People felt safe. They were protected from harm because staff understood the risks they faced and how to reduce these risks. However information about risk was not always used to review people’s care and this put people and staff at risk. Staff knew how to identify and respond to abuse; including how to access the contact details of agencies they should report concerns about people’s care to.
People’s medicines and creams were not administered safely. Recording was not accurate and we found examples of medicines not given without an explanation. There was an improvement plan in place to address this issue.
Care and treatment was mostly delivered in a way that met people’s individual needs and promoted their independence and dignity. Some people highlighted that staff were sometimes late and this could mean they were rushing. Staff kept accurate records about the care they provided and these records were used to review people’s care.
Staff were consistent in their knowledge of people’s care needs and spoke with confidence about the care they provided to meet these needs. They were motivated to provide the best care they could and told us they felt supported in their roles. They had received training that provided them with the necessary knowledge and skills to do their job effectively.
People had access to health care professionals and were supported to maintain their health by staff. Staff understood changes in people’s health and shared the information necessary for people to receive safe care. Where people had their food and drink prepared by Agincare UK Weymouth staff they told us this was prepared well. People were left with access to drinks and food appropriately.
People were positive about the care they received and told us the staff were friendly and compassionate. Staff treated people and each other with respect and kindness throughout our inspection.
There was a breach of regulation relating to how the quality and safety of the service was monitored. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.