Archived: My Homecare Derby

Updated 18 November 2022

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.

Service and service type

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

Registered Manager

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided. At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was unannounced.

Inspection activity started on 26 September 2022 and ended on 3 October 2022. We visited the location’s office on 26 and 30 September 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. 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 visited the location’s office where we met with the registered manager of the service and the nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider. We spoke with 13 members of staff, including care staff, senior care staff and administrative staff. We spoke to ten people or their representatives. We reviewed a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including governance and auditing systems, meeting minutes and policies and procedures. We looked at staff rotas and schedules. We looked at seven staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. We reviewed the care records for five people which included risk assessments and care plans.

Updated 18 November 2022

About the service

My Homecare Derby is a domiciliary care service providing support to people living in their homes. The service provides support to younger and older adults with a range of needs. At the time of the inspection, the service was providing personal care to 180 people. 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

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.

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.

Right Support: People are supported to have maximum control, choice and independence through the care provided in their own homes. Information is accessible, such as ‘Easy read’ guidance and information for people if required.

Right Care: Care is person-centred and promotes people’s dignity, privacy and human rights. Staff are had received specialist training on supporting people with a learning disability, and autistic people.

Right Culture: The ethos, values, attitudes and behaviours of leaders and care staff ensure people using services lead confident, inclusive and empowered lives. There is a positive and inclusive culture at management level, and an awareness of best practice guidance.

The service was not consistently well managed. The management team did not work together in a collaborative manner. This impacted on the staff team, delivery and oversight of the quality of care and staff morale.

Not all staff were confident in raising concerns with the management team; however, all staff told us they would report concerns to other agencies if a person was at risk of poor or unsafe care.

Safe recruitment practices required improving to ensure the providers own systems and processes were being followed. Care plans and risk assessments did not always reflect people’s changing needs.

Staff supported people with their medicines and medicines were safely managed. People told us they felt safe with the staff supporting them and were happy with the care they received.

Feedback from people’s relatives and health professionals who worked with the provider was positive. The provider learnt from incidents and complaints and shared the learning with the staff team.

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.

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 28 November 2019)

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to staffing, including safe recruitment, staff conduct and people receiving the full length of their allocated care visit. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

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.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and 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 My Homecare Derby on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement and Recommendations

We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection. We will continue to monitor the service and will take further action if needed.

We have identified a breach in relation to good governance 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.