Advantage Healthcare - South Coast

Updated 12 April 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 1 inspector.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.

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 a short period of notice for the inspection because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 26 January 2023 and ended on 10 February 2023. We visited the location’s office on 26 January 2023 and 27 January 2023.

What we did before the inspection

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 reviewed the information received from and about the service. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We visited the office and spoke with the registered manager and the clinical nurse lead. We reviewed records, including 5 people’s care plans, risk assessments and medicine records. We reviewed staff training records, 4 staff recruitment files and a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including quality monitoring systems and audits.

Following our visit to the office, we spoke with 3 care staff. We spoke with the relatives of 3 people who used the service. We received feedback from 3 health and social care professionals who had contact with the service. We spoke with 2 senior managers to get feedback about the governance and auditing systems the provider had in place. We continued to review the information sent to us by the provider.

Updated 12 April 2023

About the service

Advantage Healthcare - Southcoast is a domiciliary care service providing the regulated activities of personal care and nursing care to people in their own homes. The service supported children, young people and adults of all ages who required support with a range of care and health needs. Some people were supported with 24-hour care provision. At the time of our inspection there were 10 people receiving personal care or nursing care.

Not everyone who used the service received 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

We have made a recommendation about the recording of medicine management. We have made a recommendation about the recording of mental capacity assessments and best interest decision making.

Audits of care records did not always identify areas for improvement or gaps. A new online care record system was being introduced to give managers improved processes to review and audit records.

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 did not always support this practice. We found mental capacity assessments and best interest decision making was not robustly documented.

Staff were safely recruited to their roles. There were safeguarding policies and processes which staff followed to keep people safe and report any concerns. Staff were trained to manage infection prevention and control and had access to the personal protective equipment (PPE) they needed.

People’s nutritional and health needs were managed effectively with them. Professional advice and guidance was followed when people required healthcare and nursing support. People’s needs were regularly reviewed, and referrals were made to health professionals when required.

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 and update

The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 31 December 2019).

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 improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations, however, the service remains rated requires improvement.

Previous recommendations

At our last inspection we recommended the provider made checks to ensure all staff completed training required by the provider. At this inspection we found staff training had been completed and was monitored appropriately.

Why we inspected

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the key questions of safe, effective and well-led which contain those requirements.

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 remained requires improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Advantage Healthcare – Southcoast 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.