Alina Homecare Poole

Updated 19 April 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

This inspection was carried out by 1 inspector.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

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 the Care Quality Commission 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

We gave the service 48 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 31 March 2023 and ended on 3 April 2023. We visited the location’s office on 31 March 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 service improvement and safeguarding teams. The provider completed a Provider Information Return (PIR) prior to this inspection. A PIR is information providers send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 5 people who used the service and 5 relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with and received feedback from 11 members of staff including the registered manager, operations manager, quality manager and care workers.

We reviewed a range of records. This included 3 people's care and medication records. We looked at 3 staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed.

Updated 19 April 2023

About the service

Alina Homecare Poole is a domiciliary care service providing the regulated activity of personal care to people living in their own houses and flats. At the time of our inspection there were 33 people using the service.

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.

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.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

At the time of the inspection, the location did not care or support for anyone 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. We took this into account within this summary.

People, their relatives and staff told us Alina Homecare Poole worked to provide a safe service. People were complimentary and told us the staff were kind and caring, whilst attending to their needs. Staff enjoyed working at the service and were safely recruited, considering their skills, values, and knowledge. There were enough staff working at the service to cover the visits planned.

People had their risks identified, assessed and clear instructions for staff meant they were working in safe ways. Staff were trained in safeguarding adults and knew how to recognise concerns and who to report them to. Staff told us they were confident the management team would take concerns seriously and deal with them appropriately. People were supported with their medicines by trained staff who had their competency assessed. Medicines were managed closely with immediate alerts if a medicine was late or missed.

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. Accidents and incidents were recorded, analysed and the service learnt lessons from events. Outcomes were shared within the service and at the provider’s other locations.

Staff worked in safe ways, they had good supplies of the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) and the service followed good practice and government guidance. Quality assurance systems were robust and there was good oversight at provider level. Alina Homecare Poole actively sought feedback on the service it provided and used the feedback to make improvements. Staff felt proud to work at the service and were complimentary about their colleagues.

People, their relatives and staff told us Alina Homecare Poole was well led. We received compliments about the registered manager and management team. The registered manager understood their role and statutory responsibilities. The service worked well with external health and social care professionals.

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 14 June 2018).

Why we inspected

We had not inspected and visited this service since 2018. 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 remained 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 Alina Homecare Poole 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.