Assist and Care Ltd

Updated 19 June 2019

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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

Inspection team:

The inspection was carried out by one adult social care inspector from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Service and service type:

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the community. It provides a service to older adults, people living with dementia, people with learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder, people with an eating disorder, people with mental health issues, people with physical disabilities, people with a sensory impairment and younger adults.

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:

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because it is small, and the registered manager and deputy manager are often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in to facilitate the inspection.

What we did:

Prior to the inspection we reviewed information and evidence we already held about the home, which had been collected via our ongoing monitoring of care services. This included notifications sent to us by the home. Notifications are changes, events or incidents that the provider is legally obliged to send to us without delay. We also asked for feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the home.

We asked the service to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

During the inspection we spoke with four people who used the service and one relative about their experiences of the care provided. We spoke with the Deputy Manager, who facilitated the inspection as the registered manager was on annual leave. We also spoke with three members of care staff.

We reviewed four care files, three staff personnel files, training records, health and safety records, meeting minutes, audits and other records about the management of the home.

Updated 19 June 2019

About the service:

Assist and Care is a family run domiciliary care agency situated in the Didsbury area of Manchester. The service provides personal care to adults with a range of physical and mental disabilities. At the time of the inspection there were 43 people using the service.

People’s experience of using this service:

People said they felt safe with the staff who supported them. Staff had undertaken training in safeguarding and demonstrated a good knowledge of safeguarding issues and how to raise a concern.

Environmental risks were assessed, and individual risk assessments were in place within people’s care plans.

Recruitment systems were robust. There were enough staff to fulfil the commitments made by the service and people said staff always turned up, were always on time and never left early.

People were supported by staff with their medicines as required. Staff received adequate training and had a medicines competence check prior to working alone.

Staff were aware of how to control and prevent cross infection and were supplied with enough aprons and gloves to use when delivering personal care.

Accidents and incidents were recorded and followed up appropriately to help prevent further incidents happening.

Assessments were thorough and care plans included appropriate information. People’s care records included information about other professionals and agencies involved in their care and support. Visits were at least one hour long to enable the carer sufficient time to carry out all required tasks.

Staff were required to undertake a thorough induction programme and further training and refresher courses were on-going.

People’s nutritional needs, preferences and risks were fully explored and recorded clearly within their care plans. Records of meal were completed for people as and when required.

The service worked within the legal requirements of The Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA)

People spoke positively about the care and support received. The service had a discrimination policy, and this was discussed within training, team meetings and staff supervisions.

People were involved in planning and reviewing their care and support and communication with people who used the service was good. People’s privacy and dignity was respected.

Care files included information about people’s routines, backgrounds, interests and hobbies. This helped the service match staff with people who used the service and to support any community involvement.

The service had a policy and procure in place around complaints and we saw evidence of how concerns were addressed, which was effective. People were aware of how to make a complaint.

The service was prepared to work with other professionals within the community if someone was nearing the end of their life and wished to remain at home.

Notifications about changes, events or incidents that the provider is legally obliged to send to CQC were submitted as required. There was an open-door policy so that people could pop in to the office whenever they wished, and staff felt well supported by the management.

Quality assurance reviews of care plans were undertaken on a quarterly basis. People who used the service were encouraged to make comments about their support. Annual reviews of care were undertaken, and medicines reviews carried out regularly.

The management were members of professional associations and worked in partnership with other agencies as required. They had good communication and engagement with the wider community.

Rating at last inspection:

The previous inspection report was published on 6 December 2016 when the service was rated Good.

Why we inspected:

This inspection was part of our scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received. Inspection timescales are based on the rating awarded at the last inspection and any information and intelligence received since we inspected. As the previous inspection was Good this meant we needed to re-inspect within approximately 30 months of this date.

Follow up:

We will continue to monitor information and intelligence we receive about the home to ensure care remains safe and of good quality. We will return to re-inspect in line with our inspection timescales for good services, however if any information of concern is received, we may inspect sooner.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk