5 January 2016
During a routine inspection
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.