Archived: Ark Home Healthcare Leeds

Updated 6 February 2016

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 inspection took place on 05 January 2016 and was announced. The provider was given 48 hours’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service; we needed to be sure that someone would be in the office. The inspection team consisted of one adult social care inspector, a specialist advisor in governance and an expert-by-experience who had experience of people who used a domiciliary care service. An expert-by-experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

At the time of this inspection there were 47 people receiving personal care from Ark Home Healthcare Leeds. We spoke with, on the telephone, eight people who used the service, six relatives, nine staff, the manager and the regional operations director. We visited the provider’s office and spent some time looking at documents and records that related to people’s care and support and the management of the service. We looked at four people’s care and support plans.

We reviewed all the information we held about the service. This included any statutory notifications that had been sent to us. We contacted the local authority and Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England.

Updated 6 February 2016

The inspection took place on 05 January 2016 and was announced. We carried out an inspection in January 2015, where we found the provider had breached one regulation associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008. This was in relation to people’s consent to care and treatment. After the comprehensive inspection, the provider wrote to us to say what they would do to meet legal requirements in relation to people’s consent to care and treatment. We inspected again in July 2015, where we found the provider was meeting all the regulations.

Ark Home Healthcare is a domiciliary care agency which provides personal care to people living in their own homes in Leeds and surrounding areas. Ark Home Healthcare provides assistance and support to people to help them maintain and improve their independence.

At the time of our inspection the service did have a registered manager who was no longer in day to day charge. A new manager had started in October 2015 and was in the process of registering with the Care Quality Commission. 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.

Due to the lack of historical staff training information we were not able to see if the training provided always equip staff with the knowledge and skills to support people safely. Staff received support to help them understand how to deliver appropriate care. However, staff appraisals were not carried out. There were enough staff to meet people’s needs and visits were well planned. Checks were carried out before staff were employed by the service.

People’s care and support needs were assessed and care and support plans identified how care should be delivered. People and relatives we spoke with told us they were very happy with the service they received and staff were kind and caring, treated them with dignity and respected their choices. They said the staff stayed the agreed length of time. However, not everyone was happy with the visit times, the unfamiliar staff that attended the visit or not been introduced to new staff members.

People received assistance with meals and healthcare when required. We found there were appropriate arrangements for the safe handling of medicines.

People told us they felt safe. Arrangements were in place for managing risk appropriately, which included completing a section in each person’s care and support plan that identified hazards, the likelihood and severity of harm and action to remove/reduce risk.

People told us they made decisions about their care and we saw they or their relative had signed to say they consented to care. Staff we spoke with were confident that people’s capacity was taken into consideration when care and support was planned.

People’s care and support plans contained information about what was important to the person. Staff were confident people received good care and were able to tell us about people’s likes and dislikes, needs and wishes.

Complaints were investigated but people and/or their relatives were not always happy with how these were responded to or the outcome. Systems were in place to help make sure people received safe quality care. The manager and regional operations director had introduced positive changes and had identified further improvements to ensure service delivery met the required standard.