We carried out a review of the data available to us about Waltham House Limited on 6 July 2023. We have not found evidence that we need to carry out an inspection or reassess our rating at this stage.
This could change at any time if we receive new information. We will continue to monitor data about this service.
If you have concerns about Waltham House Limited, you can give feedback on this service.
The inspection took place between the 18 and 25 September 2017 and was announced. At the last inspection in June 2016 we rated the service ‘Requires Improvement’ overall and found three breaches of regulations relating to recruitment procedures, medicine management and governance.
At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the service was no longer in breach of regulation. We rated the service ‘good’ overall as we found a good quality and person centred service. People provided good feedback about the service and its staff. We identified some minor improvements were needed to governance to demonstrate the service was consistently well led. However due to the small size of the service and the oversight provided by the manager, we did not identify any impact on people who used the service. We had confidence these issues would be addressed by the management team.
A registered manager was in place but they had recently left the service. They were in the process of deregistering and the provider was in the process of becoming the new registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.
People provided positive feedback about the service and said care met their individual needs. They said staff delivered a timely and reliable service and treated them with dignity and respect. Good relationships had developed between people and staff. People’s views and comments were listened to and acted on to make improvements to the service.
Care and support was delivered safely. Medicines were managed safely and clear records of the support staff provided was recorded. Risks to people’s health and safety were assessed and care plans instructed staff how to undertake tasks such as moving and handling in a safe manner.
There were enough staff deployed to ensure a safe and timely service. Staff rotas were manageable and enabled people to receive care calls at roughly the same time each day. A small amount of travel time was included to enable staff to stay with people for the full allocated time.
Safe recruitment procedures were in place to ensure caring staff with the right values were recruited. Staff received a range of training on induction and at regular intervals to ensure they had the right skills to care for people.
The service was acting within the legal framework of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). People’s consent was sought prior to the delivery of care and support.
The service liaised with health professionals over people’s healthcare needs. This was documented within people’s care plans to show the interventions undertaken. Staff were clear what they would do in a medical emergency to ensure people were kept safe.
People’s care needs were assessed by the manager prior to using the service. These were used to develop care plans which varied in their detail depending on the complexity of people’s care and support needs. Records provided evidence people received timely care in line with their care plans and people told us the standard of care was high.
People, relatives and staff said the office were helpful and they were usually able to get through to the manager should they need to. Staff praised the manager and said they were supportive and approachable.
Audits and checks were undertaken on the service. Some systems such as overseeing supervisions and appraisals and the collating of incidents and minor complaints needed to be made more robust.
This was the Commission’s first inspection of the service since its registration changed in 2014.
Oasis Care provides a homecare service in the Airedale and South Craven areas of Yorkshire. At the time of our inspection they were providing personal care to 33 people who were living with dementia and/or had physical disabilities. This included adults and children.
A registered manager was in place. ‘A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.’
We received positive feedback about the service with unanimous praise received from all the people and their relatives with whom we spoke. It was clear people’s experience of the care provider was very positive and people told us the care met their individual needs. Staff and management were motivated to providing a personalised and caring service. However, some systems and processes in place were not suitably robust to demonstrate that care was safe and well led. For example, improvements were needed to the service’s checks and audits and documentation relating to medicines management.
People told us they felt safe whilst using the service and we found risks to people’s health and safety had been assessed and suitable plans of care put in place.
There were enough staff deployed to ensure people experienced a reliable and consistent service from day to day, with staff arriving on time and staying for the correct amount of time.
The service needed to improve its recruitment procedures to ensure that staff conduct in previous employment had been fully explored before staff started working at the service.
Medicines were not managed in a safe way. We identified a number of gaps on MAR charts where we could not establish whether people received their medicines as prescribed.
The service was acting within the legal framework of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA). People were supported to make decisions in relation to their care and support.
Where required, people were supported appropriately with food and drink.
People’s healthcare needs were met by the service. Staff liaised with external health professionals where required.
Staff received a range of training on induction and at periodic intervals to help ensure they had the correct skills and knowledge to care effectively for people. People we spoke with were very complimentary about the staff who cared for them.
Everyone we spoke with said they were treated with dignity and respect by staff. They praised the friendliness and kindness of staff and the management team.
People’s care needs were assessed and plans of care put in place for staff to follow. People we spoke with said their care needs were met by the service.
A system was in place to record and respond to complaints. People told us they had no need to complain and expressed a high level of satisfaction with the service.
People, relatives and staff said the service was well run and the management team were effective in their role. They said the management team were hands on and regularly delivered care and support which allowed them to understand how the company was operating and resolve any minor issues that arose promptly.
Systems to assess and monitor the quality of the service, particularly those relating to the quality of documentation such as medication records were not sufficiently robust. Systems to monitor supervision, training and spot checks needed to be put in place. The management team had recognised these areas required improvement and had a plan to address through increased administration support.
We identified three breaches of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) 2014 Regulations. You can see what action we asked the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.