Hands on Care Homecare Services

Updated 10 November 2022

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 one inspector 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 homes.

Registered Manager

This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the CQC to manage the service. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

At the time of our inspection, the service had a manager who was registered with the CQC.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because we wanted to be sure that the registered manager would be at the registered office to facilitate the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 27 September 2022 and ended on 5 October 2022. We visited the location’s office on 27 September 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since their registration in October 2019. We asked the local authority and Healthwatch for any information they had which would aid our inspection. Local authorities, together with other agencies may have responsibility for funding people who used the service and monitoring its quality. 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 all this information to plan our inspection.

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. This information helps support our inspections.

During the inspection

We spoke with seven people who used the service or their relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with seven members of support staff, the registered manager, the nominated individual and the director of the service. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

We reviewed a range of records. These included three people’s care records and extracts from others. We looked at three staff files in relation to recruitment, training and supervision. We viewed a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies, procedures and audit documents.

We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found. The manager provided us with requested documents to demonstrate training, audits and feedback received directly to the agency about the quality of the service provided.

Updated 10 November 2022

About the service

Hands on Care Homecare Services is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. 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. The service was supporting 51 people at the time of our inspection of which 19 were supported with their personal care.

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

Overall, people who used the service were satisfied with the care and support they received. However, the timing of people’s calls required improvement to ensure they were carried out to meet the person’s care and support needs. The registered manager had already identified this and was actively looking to make improvements.

Staff had access to personal protective equipment (PPE), and used it effectively to reduce risks of cross contamination and infection when delivering personal care.

Quality assurance and service auditing processes identified the strengths of the service as well as areas where improvement was needed. Audits were in place to monitor the effectiveness of the service and actions identified were used to drive improvement.

People were supported to be as independent as possible while taking their prescribed medicines. When staff offered people support, they were competent to do so.

People, and their relatives were involved in their need’s assessment and the development of their care plans. Choices and preferences were documented so staff could deliver person centred care. Overall, people spoke highly of their staff teams, only requesting more consistency to improve their experience. Again this was an area the registered manager was acting to address.

People’s dignity and privacy was respected, and staff told us how they listened to people and delivered care and support in line with their wishes.

Staff felt well supported. They felt listened to and had opportunities to seek advice and support from the registered manager. Overall staff were satisfied with the training they received although some felt it could be timelier and more detailed. The registered manager had identified that training was an area where improvement was required prior to the inspection and was actively looking to address this.

Risks were assessed to reduce or mitigate identified risks. People felt safe and staff told us they continually reviewed risks and reported changes to the office staff.

Staff understood how to safeguard people from the risk of potential harm. People’s complaints were listened to and acted upon. The registered manager was open and transparent and took opportunities to seek feedback about people’s experiences of care provided.

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 16 October 20199 and this is their first inspection.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service and to give the service its first rating.

Follow up

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