7 December 2020
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Home First – Stafford is a short-term enablement service for people living in the Stafford area. The service supports adults with health and social needs to maximise or regain their independence. At the time of our inspection, the service was supporting 38 people living in their own homes.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
People felt safe and were protected from the risk of harm by staff who understood their responsibilities to identify and report any signs of potential abuse.
People were supported by staff who had the skills and knowledge to provide effective support. There were enough staff available to provide care which met people’s needs. Medicines were managed safely, and people were protected from the risk of infections as staff followed the additional guidance in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Quality assurance systems were in place to monitor the service to ensure lessons were learnt when things went wrong. There was a positive culture within the service. Complaints were acted on and improvements made.
The registered manager understood their responsibilities and was open and reflective during the inspection.
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 07 August 2019) and there was a breach of regulation. 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.
Why we inspected
Our intelligence and monitoring systems highlighted to us that the service was high risk. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.
We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection. The overall rating for this service remains requires improvement.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Home First – Stafford on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.
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.