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Living Well Homecare

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

1st Floor, Unit 8, Arlington Court, Arlington Business Park, Whittle Way, Stevenage, SG1 2FS (01438) 300360

Provided and run by:
Living Well Homecare Ltd

Latest inspection summary

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Background to this inspection

Updated 18 August 2021

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 Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

The inspection was undertaken 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. The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. 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.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was announced. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider/registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 02 June 2021 and ended on 28 June 2021. We visited the office location on 08 June 2021.

What we did before inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since registration. The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.

During the inspection

We spoke with four people who used the service and five relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with the registered manager, nominated individual and received feedback from four staff members. We checked three people’s care records, two staff recruitment files and a variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures. We also looked at training data and quality assurance records.

After the inspection

We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found.

Overall inspection

Good

Updated 18 August 2021

About the service

Living Well Homecare is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people in their own homes. The service supported older people, people living with dementia and people with a physical disability. At the time of inspection, the service was supporting 24 people in total, all of whom were in receipt of personal care.

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

A governance system was in the process of being established at the time of inspection. Whilst incidents, accidents, complaints and safeguarding concerns were followed up, systems were not yet in place to fully document action taken, and lessons learned. Some audits were completed but had not identified the issues found during this inspection. We found that some risk assessments needed further developing to give staff sufficient guidance in how to mitigate risks effectively.

People and their relatives felt the care provided was safe and risks were managed appropriately. The registered manager understood their responsibilities to safeguard people from abuse. They had systems and processes in place to help protect people. However, whilst the local safeguarding team had been informed of any concerns, statutory notifications had not been sent to CQC.

People’s care plans identified their needs in relation to the ordering, storage and administration of medicines. Staff had received training in infection control practices and personal protective equipment was provided for them.People were supported by a consistent staff team, who had been safely recruited. The majority of staff had received appropriate training and had their competency assessed, although we did identify some gaps. Staff were positive about the support they received from the management team.

The registered manager completed care assessments before commencing support, to ensure people’s needs could be met by Living Well Homecare. Care plans were sufficiently detailed and contained important information about people’s likes and dislikes. This ensured staff supported them in line with their needs and preferences. 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 and relatives praised the kind and caring nature of the staff team. Staff had a good understanding of the people they supported. They took the time to get to know people’s individual likes and dislikes and spoke about people with kindness and compassion. People told us they would be confident to raise any concerns with the management team.

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 09 December 2019 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the date of registration.

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.