We carried out a review of the data available to us about London Borough of Hounslow Home Care 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 London Borough of Hounslow Home Care, you can give feedback on this service.
London Borough of Hounslow Home Care is known by people who use, work with and work for the service as the Community Recovery Service Plus (CRS plus). The service is registered to provide personal care and reablement support for a six-week period to people living in their own homes within London Borough of Hounslow. The service is designed to provide people with support to regain independence and skills. The service is part of an integrated team working directly with the local health authority, although the registered provider is the London Borough of Hounslow.
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. The number of people using the service fluctuated due to the nature of the services being offered.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People were happy with the care they received. They were pleased with the support they had received to recover and regain independence.
Staff were happy working for the service. They felt well supported and had the training and information they needed to care for people safely.
Risks to people's safety were assessed, monitored and planned for. The staff worked closely with a team of therapists who were part of the recovery team. This meant that risks were constantly reassessed throughout the service and people received the right support when they needed it.
The service did not usually provide support for people to take their medicines and encouraged people to be independent. Where support was offered, this was done safely and systems to oversee this made sure people received their medicines safely and as prescribed.
There were enough staff to care for people and visits took place on time. There were checks on staff suitability, skills and knowledge.
There were systems to record, monitor and learn from complaints, accidents and incidents.
There were effective systems to monitor and improve quality at the service. People using the service and staff found the management team approachable and had the information they needed. People's views and those of staff were sought and acted on.
The service worked in partnership with other professionals to help make sure people's needs were met and they received joined up care.
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 requires improvement (Published 2 April 2020)
The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve.
At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.
Why we inspected
We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection of this service on 10 February 2020. Breaches of legal requirements were found. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve safe care and treatment and good governance.
We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions Safe and Well-led which contain those requirements.
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 changed from requires improvement to 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 London Borough of Hounslow Home 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.
London Borough of Hounslow Home Care is known by people who use, work with and work for the service as the Community Recovery Service Plus (CRS plus). The service is registered to provide personal care and reablement support for a six week period to people living in their own homes within London Borough of Hounslow. The service is designed to provide people with support to regain independence and skills. The service is part of an integrated team working directly with the local health authority, although the registered provider is the London Borough of Hounslow.
At the time of the inspection 41 people were receiving reablement support. 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
Risk management plans had not always been developed to provide care workers with adequate information to enable them to reduce the risks when a specific issue had been identified during an assessment of a person’s care needs.
The provider had a range of audits in place, but the audit in relation to risk management did not always provide appropriate information to identify where actions for improvement were required.
People told us they felt safe when receiving care. Rehabilitation assistants administered people’s medicines in a safe way and as prescribed. The provider had a robust recruitment process and there were enough staff deployed to provide support based upon the care needs of people.
There was a process to investigate any concerns regarding the care provided. The provider had processes in place for the recording and investigation of incidents and accidents.
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 the reablement service to recover their ability to complete tasks of daily life, retain their independence and enable them to access the community to reduce the risk of social isolation.
Staff received the training and supervision they required to provide them with the knowledge and skills to provide care in a safe and effective way.
People had a detailed assessment of their reablement completed before the six week period of care visits started. The care plans described the care and support a person required and how they wanted it to be provided.
The provider had a complaints process in place and people told us they knew what to do if they wished to raise any concerns.
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 2 September 2017).
Why we inspected
This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating. We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvement. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report. You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.
Enforcement
We have identified breaches in relation to safe care and treatment and good governance at this inspection. Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.
Follow up
We will request an action plan for the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.
This was the first inspection of the service since it was registered at their current address in September 2015. The service was previously registered at a different location. There were no outstanding actions when the provider relocated to the current address.
London Borough of Hounslow Home Care is known by people who use, work with and work for the service as the Community Recovery Service Plus (CRS plus). The service is registered to provide personal care to people living in their own homes. The registered service is part of a larger team providing care and support to people who are recovering from a hospital stay or injury for up to six weeks when they return home. They offer 461 hours of support a week and can support between approximately 25 – 35 people at any one time. The service is designed to provide people with support to regain independence and skills. The service provides personal care with an aim of reducing the level of care and support as people become more independent. The staff providing support are known as rehab assistants. They, the assessors, coordinators and managers work closely with a team of healthcare professionals, therapists and social workers to provide a package of care.
The service is part of an integrated team working directly with the local health authority, although the registered provider is the London Borough of Hounslow.
There was a registered manager in post. 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.
People using the service and their relatives were happy with the care they received. They told us the service helped them to achieve independence and met their needs. They found the staff kind, caring and polite. People were involved in planning their own care and support and consented to this. People felt safe and knew how to raise concerns if they had any.
The staff were well supported. They were happy working for the service and felt that they were valued and did a valuable job. They enjoyed seeing the progress people made. The staff told us the registered manager listened to them and offered advice and support. The staff had regular training, supervision and the information they needed to carry out their roles and responsibilities.
The staff worked closely with other healthcare and community professionals. These professionals felt that the service was well managed and met people's needs.
There were appropriate systems for safeguarding people from abuse, for assessing risk and for safely managing their medicines. The procedures for recruiting staff included checks on their suitability.
There were systems for assessing, monitoring and improving the quality of the service, which included audits, asking stakeholders for feedback and regular reviews. Records were appropriately maintained, accurate and up to date.