Archived: Passionate about Care

Passionate about Care is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. The service was supporting 63 people at the time of the inspection, including older people, those living with dementia, people with a physical disability and younger adults.

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. 62 people were supported with personal care at the time of the inspection.

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

People and their relatives told us they were safely supported by staff. The management of medicines given ‘as required’ did not follow current best practice guidance and further detail was needed to guide staff on the safe administration of these medicines. We have made a recommendation about this. Records relating to risks about people required some further detail. However, people were mostly supported by familiar and consistent staff who knew their needs and understood how to meet these safely. There were enough staff employed to meet people’s needs, and safe recruitment practices were carried out. Staff acted to protect people from abuse and to prevent the spread of infections. Incidents and accidents were investigated and learning from these was used to prevent a reoccurrence.

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. However, records about people’s legal representatives and consent, required improvement. We have made a recommendation about this.

People’s needs were assessed, and care was planned to meet these. People were satisfied with the support they received with eating and drinking and were helped to access healthcare support when needed. Staff completed an induction into their role, competency assessments and supervision, to support them to care for people effectively. Staff completed some training prior to supporting people which was considered mandatory by the provider. A programme of on-going training was in place. However, not all staff had completed this training which was in progress.

People and their relatives told us staff were kind and caring. Staff knew people’s needs and preferences, involved people in decisions and provided respectful care.

People’s care plans were person centred and people told us they were involved in developing these plans, which were regularly reviewed. People’s communication needs were known and met. Complaints had been investigated and responded to. The provider was developing their approach to end of life care. However, no one was receiving end of life care at the time of our inspection.

The service did not have a registered manager in post, but the manager had started the process to apply for registration. Some notifications which are required to be sent to CQC had not been submitted. These were submitted following the inspection and the manager has assured us any further relevant incidents will be notified, as required. The system used to identify and manage risks to the quality of the service had not identified all the issues we found. We have made a recommendation about this. Since the service was first registered with CQC, it had increased the number of people it provided support to. The provider and manager worked closely together to manage changes and maintain a personalised service for people and staff. Feedback from staff and people was positive about the leadership of the service.

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 13/09/2018 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection.

Enforcement

We have identified one breach in relation to the provider’s failure to submit notifications of incidents to CQC.

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