Archived: Supporting Care North East Branch

Supporting Care North East Branch is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to younger disabled adults and older people, some living with dementia. At the time of the inspection the provider was supporting 24 people in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

People’s care was either funded by NHS Continuing Healthcare or through a local authority Direct Payment agreement. A Direct Payment is the amount of money that the local authority has to pay to meet the needs of people and is given to them to purchase services that will meet their needs.

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

People and their relatives were positive about the caring nature of the whole staff team. A recent compliment stated, ‘I am most impressed with Supporting Care. The carers are very understanding and professional. I have found the office staff most courteous and helpful. Thank you.’

People and their relatives benefitted from office-based staff and care workers being able to communicate with people in their own language and have a good understanding of their cultural requirements.

People and their relatives felt they received a personalised service and the provider listened to them about how they wanted to be supported. New care workers were introduced to people and their relatives and shadowed regular staff to ensure they had a good understanding of their care needs.

We saw the provider had been flexible to accommodate people’s changing needs. For example, we saw extra calls were scheduled in emergencies and correspondence showed care workers regularly spent extra time with a person due to a change in their wellbeing.

People and their relatives felt staff were experienced and knew how to manage complex health and medical conditions, working in partnership with a range of health and social care professionals to ensure people’s needs were met. A health and social care professional confirmed this and told us they had confidence when referring people’s care to them.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible. The policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

People were supported by a motivated staff team that felt valued and supported in their role. Care workers complimented the open and inclusive working environment and told us they were always listened to if they had any issues or concerns.

The provider was proactive and before we requested a formal action plan, they sent us an action plan on 7 February 2020 based on the initial feedback given at the end of the inspection.

We have made two recommendations that the provider ensures records are updated regarding the support people receive with their medicines and safer recruitment processes are always followed.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

The service was registered with us on 5 February 2019 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the registration date of the service.

Follow up

We will request an action plan for the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.