Right at Home Chippenham

Right at Home Wiltshire is a domiciliary care service that provides personal care to people in their own homes.

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

The service did not have a registered manager. This was a condition of their registration. A new manager had been appointed and commenced employment on 2 August 2021. There had been changes to the management team and office staff, which had given a period of instability. The provider had identified the service had slipped below their expected standards. A clear action plan was in place to address the shortfalls and time was being given to embed any changes.

Not all staff were up to date with their training, which was deemed mandatory by the provider. This did not ensure staff were up to date with their knowledge. Staff were not regularly having one to one meetings with their supervisor to gain support and reflect on their work. The provider and manager had plans to address these areas.

People felt safe with staff supporting them. Staff supported people to minimise risks they faced and reported any concerns about safety. People’s medicines were safely managed, and systems were in place to minimise the risk of infection. This included weekly testing of staff for COVID-19 and the safe use of personal protective clothing (PPE). There were enough staff to support existing care packages, although staff sickness and any self-isolation put pressure on the service.

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.

People were treated with kindness and compassion. People were complimentary about the staff and said they were caring, friendly and polite. Staff enjoyed supporting people and promoted their rights to privacy, dignity and independence.

People were happy with the support they received. They were generally supported by the same staff although their visits were not always on time. People had schedules of their visits, but these were not always accurate. The manager was re-visiting the scheduling of visits to ensure improvements were made. People had a support plan in place, which they helped devise. These were being transferred to the newly introduced electronic system, and reviewed to ensure more person centred information was recorded.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 18/09/2019 and this is the first comprehensive inspection. A focused inspection of the service was undertaken on 17/09/20. At that time, the safe and well-led key questions were the only areas inspected, and an overall rating for the service was not given.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on inspection schedule.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the effective, responsive and well-led key question sections of this full report.

Follow up

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.

Right at Home Chippenham is a is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. Not everyone using Right at Home Chippenham receives a regulated activity, CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with 'personal care', help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided. At the time of our inspection the service was supporting 35 people under the regulated activity and two people with other types of support.

Right at Home Chippenham is part of a franchise model, that enables entrepreneurs to build their own care service. Owners receive ongoing support within an already established home care framework.

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

Risk assessments were in place but did not always contain enough detail about the management of the risk. We have made a recommendation to the provider to review these and amend where appropriate.

People were positive about the support they received from staff, however some issues around visit times, rotas and previous missed visits were raised. The service had maintained staffing levels during the height of the pandemic.

Systems were in place to reduce the spread of infection. Staff told us they had access to all the necessary protective equipment and had been well supported during the ongoing pandemic. Some people did share reports that at times staff had removed or not worn correctly all the protective equipment.

Staff had the knowledge and confidence to identify safeguarding concerns and act on them to keep people safe.

The majority of staff we spoke with felt that they had been well supported by the management team. A few staff and people and their relatives did raise that they felt communication and a timely response to their queries needed to be improved.

Systems were in place to monitor the service people received. This included audits of care plans and medicine records. We saw that some things we had identified had not been picked up previously and raised this with the management team to address going forward.

People had the opportunity to provide feedback about the service they received. We saw that telephone reviews had taken place and the responses received were positive. Actions from people and staff feedback were taken forward to drive improvement within the service.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 18/09/2019 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection as the service has not previously been inspected or rated. There is not currently a registered manager, but a manager is in place and in the process of registering with CQC.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the Safe key question of this full report.

This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions of Safe and Well-led. The key questions of Effective, Caring and Responsive were not looked at during this inspection.

Follow up

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.