Angelus Homecare

Angelus Homecare is a home care service providing personal care to people in their own home. The service provides support to older adults who may be living with dementia, a physical disability or mental health diagnosis. At the time of our inspection there were 13 people using the service. The service supported people living in the Hampshire area.

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 registered manager had made improvements to the quality and safety of the service since our last inspection. There was a clear management structure in place and an effective system to oversee the quality of care. People and staff told us senior staff were professional, approachable and had worked hard to make improvements to the service.

Staff received appropriate training in line with their role. There were systems in place to monitor staff’s ongoing training needs. The provider made assessments of people’s needs prior to care commencing and worked with healthcare professionals to ensure staff had the right training, guidance and equipment in place to provide safe care. There were appropriate processes to gain people’s consent to care. 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.

There were sufficient numbers of staff in place to meet people’s needs. The registered manager had made responsible decisions in relation to the speed of growth of the service, with the current challenges recruiting new staff. Risks related to the delivery of care were assessed and reduced and people felt safe receiving care from staff. The provider had systems in place to safeguard people from suffering abuse or coming to avoidable harm. There were processes in place to monitor the care people received in real time through the use of electronic care planning systems. This helped to ensure people’s care and medicines records were monitored by senior staff and incidents could be identified and resolved quickly.

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 requires improvement (published 15 June 2021) and there were breaches of regulations. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found enough improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

Why we inspected

At the last inspection we found the provider was in breach of regulations. This inspection was carried out to review actions the provider told us they would take to comply with the regulations and improve the service. As a result, we undertook a focussed inspection of the key questions, safe, effective and well-led to review the quality and safety of the service.

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 requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Angelus Homecare on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.

Angelus Homecare is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people who live in their own

home. At the time of inspection, they were providing care to 13 people, which included older people and people with medical conditions affecting their mobility.

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

The provider’s arrangements for staff training were not comprehensive and did not follow best practice. Staff told us they received a limited and inconsistent programme of training, induction and support, which meant they did not always feel confident in meeting people’s needs.

Systems to audit people’s care records were not effective in monitoring or improving the quality of care. Auditing processes were limited, and some audits did not identify where errors or issues had occurred.

A new manager was in place, who told us they intended to register with CQC as manager of the service. They understood their regulatory responsibilities and were knowledgeable about their role.

There was positive feedback about the new manager’s open and engaging approach from people, relatives and staff.

The new manager understood where key improvements to the quality of care were needed. They had developed an action plan to highlight how and when improvements would be made.

There were enough staff in place to meet people’s needs, although there was a reliance on office staff to complete a high volume of care calls, which meant they were not able to focus fully on their roles.

The provider followed safe recruitment processes to help ensure staff had appropriate background checks before starting employment.

People told us most staff were kind, friendly and caring. However, they said that some lacked experience and confidence in their role.

People told us that staff treated them with dignity and respect when they were supporting them with their personal care.

People’s care plans reflected their needs and detailed their preferred routines around their personal care, eating and drinking and healthcare needs. People told us they were involved in developing and reviewing their care plans.

People told us they received their care calls on time and were informed about changes to their care.

Staff followed infection control procedures to minimise the risk of infections spreading.

There were systems in place to help ensure people did not suffer abuse or come to avoidable harm. The manager understood their responsibilities in investigating and reporting safeguarding concerns.

People told us they felt comfortable raising issues or concerns to the manager. The manager was developing systems to gain feedback from people about their care to help drive improvements.

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

This service was registered with us on 13 December 2019 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about staff training and management of the service. A decision was made for us to complete a comprehensive inspection and examine those risks.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the effective,

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.

Follow up

We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will

return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect

sooner.