We carried out a review of the data available to us about Alina Homecare Poole 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 Alina Homecare Poole, you can give feedback on this 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.
This announced inspection took place on the 30 April 2018 and 2 and 4 May 2018. There was a registered manager for the service. 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.
Staff understood the risks people faced and how to reduce these risks. Measures to reduce risk reflected people’s wishes and preferences. Staff also knew how to identify and respond to abuse and told us they would whistleblow if it was necessary.
Staff encouraged people to make decisions about their lives. However, care plans did not always reflect the care that was being delivered or how it was developed within the framework of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. This was addressed during our inspection.
People were supported by safely recruited staff who were committed, kind and enthusiastic. Staff told us they felt supported in their roles and had taken training that provided them with some of the necessary knowledge and skills. People told us that staff were usually on time and they were mostly told if their visit would be late.
Oversight structures and ethos of care were clearly communicated and the quality assurance systems had been effective in identifying areas for improvement. People and relatives mostly felt that they were listened to and we saw that their views informed improvement work.
There were systems in place to ensure people had enough to eat and drink and that people were supported safely when eating and drinking.
People were positive about the care they received from the service and told us the staff were kind. Staff were cheerful and treated people with respect and kindness throughout our inspection.