Access Dignity Care Limited Also known as Access Dignity

Updated 16 January 2024

Access Dignity Care Limited is a domiciliary home care agency providing personal care to people living in their own homes in the community. The service is registered to provide care for older people, those living with dementia, people with mental health needs, a physical disability or sensory impairment. The service is also registered to provide care for people with a learning disability and or autistic people, although at the time of inspection the service was not providing anyone with these support needs with the regulated activity of personal care. At the time we announced our assessment, 68 people were being supported with personal care at the service. We carried out our on-site assessment on 24 January 2024, off site assessment activity started on 18 January 2024 and ended on 14 February 2024. We completed this assessment in response to concerns we had received about the service. We looked at quality statements relating to areas in Safe, Effective, Caring and Responsive. Due to concerns identified during the assessment process, we widened the scope of the assessment to review further quality statements as required, including all of Well-led. We have identified breaches of regulations relating to person centred care, consent, safe care and treatment, safeguarding, governance, and staffing. We also found the provider had not made statutory notifications to the CQC as required by law. We have told the provider they need to make improvements. The overall rating for this service is ‘Inadequate’ and the service is therefore in ‘special measures’. This means we will keep the service under review and, if we do not propose to cancel the provider’s registration, we will re-inspect within 6 months to check for significant improvements. If the provider has not made enough improvement within this timeframe. And there is still a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall rating, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures.

Updated 16 January 2024

We spoke with 7 people and 9 family members as part of the assessment process, including telephone calls made by an Expert by Experience. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. We received mixed feedback from people using the service, with both positive and negative comments. People told us their regular care workers were polite and friendly. A person’s relative told us, “Generally our care workers are good and helpful.” However, timing of visits, continuity of care, poor quality of assessments, staff training, language barriers and staff gender were all issues raised by people using the service or by their relatives or advocates. A person’s relative told us, “There are too many different care workers; 1 week there will be 1 set of care workers and the next week a whole new set of care workers. This increases [person’s] anxiety to great heights, anxiety associated with [their health condition], and it’s not OK.” People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service did support this practice. A person told us, “The timings aren’t good for me. I wasn’t given a choice. [Care workers] come at 9.30am and 9pm and the evening call is much too late for me. They didn’t ask me.” People told us the provider was approachable, but found comments or concerns were not always addressed in a timely way. A person told us, “[Access Dignity Care Limited] phone regularly to ask if everything is OK.” Another person’s relative said, “I’ve complained a few times about timings but… no changes” and, “Getting the timings right would really help.”