Precious Hope and Home Care Ltd

Updated 14 June 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 2 inspectors on site. A further inspector provided remote support and made calls to staff, as part of the inspection. Two Experts by Experience made calls to people who use the service and their family members. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.

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 we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

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. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 18 people who use the service and 10 family members to share their experiences of care received. We also spoke with 13 staff members including the registered manager, service manager, care coordinator, 1 team leader, 5 senior care workers and 4 care workers.

We reviewed a range of records. This included 16 care records, 6 staff files in relation to recruitment and supervision, and multiple medication records. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed.

Updated 14 June 2023

About the service

Precious Hope and Home Care Ltd is a domiciliary care agency providing support, including personal care. The service provides support to people living in their own homes in the community. At the time of our inspection there were 163 people receiving personal care.

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

Right support: People told us they were safe with the staff who supported them. Staff were recruited to the service safely. 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.

Right care: Care plans did not always contain sufficient information about people's health needs. People's medicines were managed safely. Staff were trained and understood how to support people to stay safe from harm or abuse. Staff worked in partnership with health professionals to ensure people received the right care and support.

Right culture: Audit systems required further improvement. Systems were in place to monitor the quality of the service people received. Most people and their relatives spoke positively about the service and would them. Staff spoke positively about the support they received from the management team.

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 29 July 2022) and there were breaches of regulation. 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 but the provider remained in breach of regulation.

Why we inspected

This inspection was carried out to follow up on action we told the provider to take at the last inspection.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the 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.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Precious Hope and Home Care Ltd on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement and Recommendations

We have identified a breach in relation to governance systems to monitor the service at this inspection.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.