OOJ Homecare Services Limited

Updated 14 September 2023

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

This inspection was carried out by two inspectors and 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.

OOJ Homecare Services is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because the service is small and we needed to be sure the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 12 July 2023 and ended on 28 July 2023. We visited the location’s office on 12 July 2023.

What we did before the inspection

Before the inspection, we reviewed all the information we held about the service including information about important events which the service is required to tell us about by law. We requested and received feedback from other stakeholders in Leeds and Scarborough. These included the local authority safeguarding team, commissioners, and Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 3 people who were using the service and 4 relatives of people using the service. We spoke with 5 support workers, the nominated individual, and the registered manager. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider. We received feedback from one healthcare professional.

We looked at care records for 3 people. This included medication administration records, risk assessments, care plans, and daily records. We reviewed staff recruitment files, various policies and procedures, and the quality assurance and monitoring systems of the service.

Updated 14 September 2023

About the service

OOJ Homecare Services Limited is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to adults living in their own homes. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. Care Quality Commission (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. During our inspection visit, the provider was caring for 21 people in Leeds and Scarborough.

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

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

Right Support: Although there were policies and procedures in place to ensure people's rights under the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) was respected, we found people were not always supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not always support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests.

Medicines were not always managed safely. Medication administration records (MARs) were not completed in line with national guidance.

We could not be assured all aspects of recruitment were managed safely.

Right Care: People told us they received kind and compassionate care however we found concerns in relation to quality of records, late visits, and quality assurance systems. Staff protected and respected people’s privacy and dignity. They understood and responded to their individual needs. Staff knew and understood people well and were responsive, supporting their aspirations to live a quality life of their choosing.

Right Culture: People’s care plans and daily records lacked detail and were not always person-centred. Effective quality monitoring was not fully in place and issues identified had not been previously identified by the provider. The registered manager cooperated with the inspection process and told us the action they would take to address the issues found.

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 12 March 2020).

At our last inspection we recommended the provider consults and implements good practice and guidance in recording administration of medication and recording of mental capacity assessments and best interest decisions. At this inspection we found further concerns in these areas and the recommendations had not been acted upon by the provider.

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to staffing. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

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

We have found evidence the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe 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.

The provider has been responsive and taken action to mitigate risks including updating care plans, arranging medication reviews, and putting additional medication administration records (MARs) in place.

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

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in relation to safe care and treatment and good governance at this inspection.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

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