First Choice Home Care (Halesworth)

Updated 24 November 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

The inspection was carried out by 2 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.

Service and service type

This service 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

This inspection was unannounced.

What we did before inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 13 people who used the service and 4 relatives. We spoke with the area manager, registered manager, and received feedback from 9 care staff. We looked at a range of management records including, medicines, quality audits and staff training. We reviewed 5 people's care records including risk assessments and 4 staff recruitment records. The registered manager sent us documentation we asked for and clarified any queries we had.

Updated 24 November 2023

About the service

First Choice Home Care (Halesworth) is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to adults. At the time of this inspection 92 people were receiving a service. 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 were safeguarded from the risk of harm or abuse. Staff were recruited safely and there were enough staff on duty to meet people's needs. People had risk assessments to reduce the risk of harm they may face. People were protected from the risks associated from the spread of infection. Medicines were managed safely. The provider had a system in place to learn lessons from accidents and incidents.

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, relatives and staff mostly spoke positively about the leadership in the service. The service recognised challenges and had actions in place to address them.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people. We considered this guidance as there were people using the service who have a learning disability and or who are autistic.

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 February 2019).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to the capacity of the service. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, effective, and well-led only. We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe, effective, and well-led sections of this full report.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for First Choice Home Care (Halesworth) 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.