SSA Quality Care

SSA Quality Care is registered to provide personal care and support to people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection there were 60 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.

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.

People were supported by staff who had been recruited to ensure they had the right skills. Criminal record checks were completed for all staff. We found improvement could be made when obtaining employment references for new staff. We have made a recommendation about this.

People received kind and compassionate care. Staff protected and respected people’s privacy and dignity. They understood and responded to their individual needs. Comments from people included, “Very professional. They treat her with utmost respect. They respect her wishes; they do what she asks of them”, “They treat me very good. They speak kindly to me; I don’t have any problems” and “They leave me while I’m toileting, they respect my privacy that way.”

Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. The service worked well with other agencies to do so. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it.

People and those important to them, including advocates, were involved in planning their care.

Staff evaluated the quality of support provided to people, involving the person, their families and other professionals as appropriate.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection and update

The last rating for this service was good (published 14 February 2020).

At our last inspection we recommended the service sought advice from a reputable source on records relating to people’s decision making and how the service acted on feedback from people. We found the provider had acted on the recommendations and we found improvements had been made.

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.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for SSA Quality Care 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.

SSA Quality Care is registered to provide personal care and support to people 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 the inspection the service supported 41 older and younger adults with a range of health concerns across Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. Some people had support from a live-in carer, whilst other people received more traditional support calls at key times during the day.

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

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. We have made a recommendation about ensuring records reflect decisions made about people. We found some improvements could be made to the way the services recorded decisions where people had been assessed as lacking the ability to make a specific decision.

We received mixed feedback from people about their experience of the support they received from SSA Quality Care. People told us they did not always have confidence their feedback was understood by the service. Some people told us communication with the office was “Absolutely terrible” and “Poor”. We have made a recommendation about this in the report.

The provider's quality assurance processes had identified this and they had taken action to reduce the likelihood of it occurring in the future.

Where people received consistent care, people told us care workers were “Great”, “Excellent”, “Lovely” and “Fantastic”.

People had care plans which reflected their individual needs. People’s likes, and dislikes were well known by staff.

Staff felt supported by the management team. Staff had a good understanding of the topics they had studied and knew how to protect people from abuse.

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 10 July 2017).

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

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.

SSA Quality Care is registered to provide support to people in their own home. At the time of the inspection the care agency provided care and support to twenty seven people who primarily lived in Buckinghamshire. The main office is based in Aylesbury.

At the last inspection, the service was rated Good. At this inspection we found the service remained Good.

We received positive feedback from people, their relatives and external social care professionals.

People told us they had developed a good working relationship with the care workers and office staff. Comments included “We have a good chat, I have a very good relationship, they are very professional,” “I only have to mention something and they do it straight away” and “They (Staff) respect my home and they are all very friendly.”

People were supported by staff with right skills and experience, as robust recruitment processes were in place.

People were supported by staff who understood their role and were trained to provide safe care.

People were protected from abuse and avoidable harm, as staff understood how to recognise signs of abuse and what to do in the event of concern being raised.

People received a person centred service, as they had been involved in developing care plans which reflected their likes and preferences.

Staff understood the core principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and processes were in place to ensure where people lacked mental capacity the service made decision in the person’s best interest.

People told us they had confidence in the management and they would go to them if they had any concerns.

Staff told us they felt supported by management and felt involved in driving improvements. There was a positive culture within the organisation.