Archived: Athena Care Limited

Athena Care provides care and support to people living in their own houses and flats. The service was supporting 38 people at the time of inspection.

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

People and relatives were happy with the care and support they received and spoke positively about staff and the registered manager. People's care and support needs were met by staff who knew them well and enjoyed working with them.

Safe recruitment practices were followed. Appropriate recruitment checks took place before staff started work. Staff received comprehensive training to enable them to carry out their roles effectively. Staff were happy working for the service and felt supported by the registered manager and colleagues. Staff success was recognised and celebrated.

Care records contained extensive, clear information covering all aspects of people's individualised care and support. Their communication needs were assessed and recorded in detail. Risk assessments were comprehensive and information about people was written in a respectful and personalised way.

Staff supported people to access a healthy, varied diet and food they enjoyed.

People and their relatives were involved in the planning and delivery of their care, and regularly asked for feedback which was acted upon when appropriate.

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.

Staff supported people to take part in activities they enjoyed and to access the community.

Staff at the service worked with health and social care professionals to ensure good outcomes for people.

There were systems in place to monitor and improve the quality of the service. When there were problems, the registered manager dealt with them appropriately and worked to reduce the likelihood of recurrence.

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 Good (published 6 April 2017).

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

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.

A registered manager was in place. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People and relatives we spoke with told us they thought the service ensured that people received safe personal care. Staff had been trained in safeguarding (protecting people from abuse) and staff understood their responsibilities in this area.

We saw that medicines were, in the main, supplied safely and on time, to promote people’s health needs.

Risk assessments were not comprehensively in place to protect people from risks to their health and welfare. Staff recruitment checks were in place to protect people from receiving personal care from unsuitable staff.

Staff had received training to ensure they had skills and knowledge to meet people's needs. Staff did not comprehensively understand their responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) to ensure people had effective choices about how they lived their lives.

People and relatives we spoke with all told us that staff were friendly, kind, positive and caring. They said they had been involved in making decisions about how and the type of what personal care they needed. to meet care needs.

Care plans were individual to the people using the service and were in place to ensure that their needs and preferences were met, though they did not include all relevant information such as people's past histories.

People and relatives told us they would tell staff or management if they had any concerns, and they were confident these would be properly followed up. Complaints had been properly investigated.

People and their relatives were satisfied with how the service was run. Staff felt they were supported in their work by the senior management of the service. Management carried out audits in order to check that the service was meeting people's needs and to ensure people were provided with a quality service.

A registered manager was in place. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The registered manager was also the provider.

People and their relatives we spoke with said they thought the agency ensured that people received safe personal care. Staff had been trained in safeguarding (protecting people from abuse) and staff understood their responsibilities in this area.

Risk assessments were not fully detailed to assist staff are to support people safely.

There were records of medicines taken by people but more evidence was needed to ensure they were taken safely and on time, to protect people's health needs

Staff had not always been safety recruited to ensure they were appropriate to supply personal care to people.

Staff had training to ensure they had the skills and knowledge to be able to meet people's needs.

Staff understood their responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) to allow, as much as possible, people to have effective choice about how they lived their lives.

People or their relatives told us that people had been assisted to eat and drink and everyone told us they thought the food prepared by staff was good.

Staff had awareness of people's health care needs so they were in a position to refer to health care professionals if needed.

People and their relatives we spoke with told us that staff were friendly, kind, positive and caring.

People, or their relatives, were involved in making decisions about how personal care was to be provided.

Care plans individual to the people using the service, but more evidence was needed that staff used the information to provide stimulation and interest to people, to ensure that people's individual needs were met.

People or their relatives told us they would tell staff or management if they had any concerns and were confident any issues would be properly followed up.

People and their relatives were satisfied with how the agency was run by the registered manager. There were comments for improvement from staff to ensure office management staff always had a positive attitude towards them and they were not pressurised to carry out excessive shifts.

Management carried out audits and checks to ensure the agency was running properly. However, some audits were not comprehensive to ensure people were always provided with a quality service.

The detailed evidence supporting our summary can be read in our full report.

Is the service safe?

People told us they felt safe.

People told us that they felt their rights and dignity were respected.

Staff had been aware about care plans and risk management plans that had been written for people with particular needs. This protected people from unnecessary risk of harm.

There was a system in place to make sure that the manager and staff learned from events such as accidents and incidents, complaints, concerns, whistleblowing and investigations. This means that people were benefiting from a service that was continually learning from issues.

Recruitment practice was safe and thorough.

Is the service effective?

People's health and care needs had been assessed and care plans were in place. There was evidence of people being involved in assessments of their needs and planning their care. People told us that staff had spoken with them about their care needs. Specialist dietary needs were assessed and included in care plans though more detail was needed in some plans to ensure people got the right food. Care plans had been reviewed regularly. This confirmed that people's needs were being met.

Is the service caring?

Six people told us about the staff supporting them. They told us that: 'the staff are kind and considerate', 'staff do what I ask them, and they know what they are doing'.

People using the service, and their relatives, completed an annual satisfaction survey. No action plan had been produced so there was a risk that not all issues had been dealt with. The registered manager told us they would develop an action plan in the future to ensure people were not at risk of not receiving good quality care. She said the organisation incorporates action plans from the annual satisfaction survey within its quarterly management meetings.

Is the service responsive?

People said that they could make a compliant if they wanted to. People told us when they told the registered manager about anything that had concerned them, the manager had quickly put it right. They were satisfied with the outcome of their concern. We looked at the investigations completed by the registered manager. This confirmed that they had been thorough and completed in line with the complaints policy.

Is the service well-led?

Staff told us that if they witnessed or heard of poor practice they would report their concerns to their management.

The service had a quality assurance system. The records seen by us showed that any shortfalls identified had been addressed. The system did not make sure that staff were able to provide feedback to their managers, so their knowledge and experience was not being properly taken into account. The manager told us this would be followed up.

There were suggestions made; to ensure that communication at head office was always good with staff passing on messages from people, for the language skills of staff to always be of a standard to properly communicate with people, and for the agency to check that staff training had always been effective, particularly with caring for people who have dementia.