Amicus Homecare Ltd

Updated 15 March 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 one inspector and a member of the medicine team on site. An Expert by Experience completed phone calls to people and their relatives. 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 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because the service is small, and people are often out and we wanted to be sure there would be people at home to speak with us.

Inspection activity started on 10 January 2023 and ended on 16 January 2023. We visited the location’s office on 10 and 13 January 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 and professionals who work with the service. We used 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 6 people and 6 relatives on the telephone. We spoke with 10 staff members either in person or on the telephone. This included two directors, the registered manager, office staff and care staff.

We looked at a range of records including care plans, medicine administration records, training information, policies and procedures, governance records and information the provider shared with us.

Updated 15 March 2023

About the service

Amicus Homecare Ltd is a care at home service providing personal care to people. The service provides support to people in their own home. At the time of our inspection there were 41 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.

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

People thought they were supported by kind and caring staff. However, improvements were required in several areas across the service. This included, learning lessons and records in relation to medicine management.

The provider had recently introduced several digital systems. This had led to gaps in people’s care records including a lack of assessing risks. Management systems were not embedded or effective to identify concerns found during the inspection. There were short falls in auditing, reporting and systems to protect people from abuse.

Small improvements were required with recruitment checks and staff supervisions. The systems to listen to staffs’ views and those of people who use the service had not been utilised for over a year. Although, people and their relatives had met the registered manager and were positive about them.

Systems to stop infections spreading including the use of gloves, aprons and masks were in place. The management were proud they had avoided any large COVID-19 outbreaks during the pandemic. They were also positive they were trying to support the crisis in health care by increasing how many people could be supported.

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 good (published 20 July 2018).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to the management of medicines, governance systems, knowledge of the management around health and social care and staffing issues. 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 changed from good to requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection.

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 Amicus Homecare Ltd on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement and Recommendations

We have identified breaches in relation to medicine records, management systems in the service, safe care and treatment and systems protecting people from potential abuse 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.