Helping Hands Aylesbury

Updated 30 December 2017

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 provider is 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.

This was a comprehensive inspection.

This inspection took place on 29 and 30 November 2017 and was announced. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because the location provides a domiciliary care service and we needed to be sure that they would be available.

This inspection was carried out by one inspector and an expert-by-experience. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

Before the inspection the provider completed a Provider Information Return (PIR). The PIR is a form that the provider submits to the Commission which gives us key information about the service, what it does well and what improvements they plan to make. We reviewed notifications and any other information we had received since the last inspection. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law.

Prior to the inspection we sent out questionnaires to people, their relatives, staff and community professionals. The return rate was low with 31% of completed questionnaires from people, eighteen percent from staff and 5 % from relatives. At the time of the inspection we made telephone calls to people and their relatives to seek feedback and we sent requests to staff for feedback. While at the office we spoke with the registered manager, the interim senior quality assurance manager, head of homecare and a quality assurance officer. In addition we spoke with a field care supervisor and two care workers.

We contacted health and social care professionals who work with the service to seek feedback. We looked at six people’s care records, which included medicine records. We looked at four staff recruitment files and cross referenced records against the provider’s policies and procedures.

Updated 30 December 2017

This inspection was carried out on 29 and 30 November 2017 and was announced. Helping Hands Aylesbury is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats. It provides a service to older adults and younger disabled adults. The office is based in the town of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

At the last inspection, the service was rated Good.

At this inspection we found the service remained Good.

People we spoke with gave us positive feedback about the care staff. Comments included “The carers are really lovely. They’re very polite and kind,” “They know what they need to do after they’ve been once and after they’ve finished what they should do they always ask if there’s anything else I would like them to do. They automatically do any washing up without me needing to ask. They just use their common sense and just look around for jobs to do” and “The housework they do is definitely to my standard. There’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to do it yourself so it’s good that they make sure I’m happy.”

People were supported by staff who had been recruited by a robust process to ensure they had the right skills and attributes.

Staff were aware of how to recognise abuse and were knowledgeable about what to do in the event of a concern being raised.

People could be confident that staff were trained to support them, the provider ensured staff had access to training and systems were in place to monitor staff performance.

People were supported by a service that sought to continually learn from when things went wrong and developed ways to reduce the likelihood to harm to people.

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 support this practice.

Where required, people were supported with their nutritional needs. The service worked with external health care professionals to keep people healthy and well.

Staff were aware of people’s likes and dislikes, information was gathered about people’s interests. Staff encouraged people to be independent one person told us “They’re very respectful indeed towards me, they always let me do the bits that I can and make me feel very comfortable in their presence. I don’t feel any embarrassment at all with them.”

Systems were in place to monitor the quality of the service provided. There was a clear vision in the organisation to support people to achieve a fulfilling, safe and good quality of life.

Record management within the service required improvements. We found paper and computer records did not always contain up to date information. There was a lack of information being recorded about telephone calls made to the service. For instance, we found there was not always a clear audit trail for changes made to people’s care needs. We have made a recommendation about this in the report.