Human Support Group Limited - Whitehaven

Updated 8 June 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

The inspection was carried out by one inspector and one 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.

Service and service type

This service 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 CQC 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

This inspection was announced. We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 27 April and ended on 16 May 2023. We visited the location’s office on 27 April 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority. 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 used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 8 people who use the service and 3 relatives about their experiences of the care provided. We spoke with 10 members of staff including the regional manager, registered manager, deputy manager, administrator and care staff.

We reviewed a range of records. This included 8 people’s care records and multiple medicines records. We looked at 3 staff recruitment files. A variety or records relating to the management of the service, including a sample of the provider’s policies and procedures, training information, audits, meeting minutes and people’s feedback were reviewed. We spoke with 2 health and social care professionals who regularly work alongside the service.

Updated 8 June 2023

About the service

Human Support Group Limited- Whitehaven is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people with a range of care needs, including older people, younger adults, people living dementia and people living with physical disabilities. At the time of our inspection there were 65 people using the service.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. The Care Quality Commission (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 people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

At the time of the inspection, the location supported one person with a learning disability or an autistic person. However, we assessed the care provision under Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture, as it is registered as a specialist service for this population group.

People felt safe and confident with the staff supporting them. Staff responded appropriately when incidents occurred or people experienced changes in their health needs. Information about people’s health conditions and risks associated with these was not always recorded in detail to ensure staff would know how to respond if issues arose. We have made a recommendation about risk assessment and management plans.

People were supported by staff who had been recruited safely and had received training to support them. We have made a recommendation about learning disability and autism training to support staff knowledge and skills.

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.

The provider had quality assurance systems established to monitor the quality of care provided at the service and any areas for improvement. The registered manager and provider were committed to making improvements. People were encouraged to give feedback on the service, which was used to drive change.

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 30 March 2018).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of Safe and Well-led only.

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 stayed as good based on the findings of this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Human Support Group Limited- Whitehaven 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.