17 November 2023
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Avalon Teesside Services is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care and support to people living 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. At the time of inspection 10 people were receiving personal care.
People’s experience of using this service and what we found
Relatives and an advocate were happy with the service and the care people received. They were complimentary about staff calling them “kind,” “caring” and “helpful.” Comments included, “Staff are very, very caring, and treat [person] like a family member” and, “They are all most attentive. [Person] always smiles and is happy to see them. I would know 100% if my [family member] was not happy.”
There were systems in place to keep people safe. Staff safeguarded people from abuse. Risks to people’s health, safety and well-being were managed. There were enough staff to meet people’s needs and safe recruitment processes were followed. A relative told us, “There are enough staff. In all the years they've helped us, I've never had a problem. I think they must have a very robust interview process, because the staff we've had, are so good.” Medicines were safely administered and managed. The provider learned from previous accidents and incidents to reduce future risks. The provider and staff protected people from the risk or spread of infection.
The service was well managed. The provider, registered manager and staff promoted a positive culture in the service. Relatives and an advocate were complimentary about staff and the care people received. The provider had an effective quality assurance process in place which included regular audits and spot checks. People, relatives and staff were regularly consulted about the quality of the service through regular communication, surveys and reviews.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
Rating at last inspection
The last rating for this service was good (published 14 August 2018).
Why we inspected
This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. As a result, we decided to undertake a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.
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 good based on the findings of this inspection. We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm. Please see the Safe and Well-led sections of this full report.
This was an ‘inspection using remote technology’. This means we did not visit the office location and instead used technology such as electronic file sharing to gather information, and video and phone calls to engage with people using the service as part of this performance review and assessment.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Avalon Teesside Services 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.