Lotus Home Care Limited

Lotus Home Care Limited is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to 68 people with different health and care needs at the time of the inspection. The service supports people in their own houses and flats in Barnsley and nearby areas.

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.

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

When we inspected the service, we took into account a balance of what people told us and what we found across the service, to make our judgements. Overall, people were satisfied with their care and spoke well of the staff. However, a recurring theme and clear issue was the reliability of call times and consistency of staff. The provider had an action plan to improve this and we made a recommendation.

Risk management, including infection control, as well as the planning and delivery of safe care, at times needed to be improved. We made a recommendation. However, oversight at local and provider level had identified most of the issues we found. A restructuring of the office and the governance of the service had been implemented to make the improvements needed. This included a focus on ensuring more frequent consultation of people and involving them in the service. A new manager was in post and overseeing the service alongside the existing registered manager. They re-introduced a newsletter, to start improving communication with people.

Person-centred care was underpinned by individualised plans. Although we saw variation in the level of detail, there was also evidence of a good knowledge of people’s life stories and understanding of their needs. We received positive feedback about the outcomes the service helped people to achieve in partnership with other professionals and staff gave us examples of this. Staff felt well supported and were involved in the service through regular meetings. Staff spoke of people with warmth and understanding of the role they played in reducing people’s isolation, maintaining their independence and promoting their quality of life.

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.

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 31 May 2017). We checked to see if the service maintained its good rating. We found that overall it had, although we awarded the lower rating of requires improvement for safe.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.

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.

The service had a 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.

Lotus Homecare is an agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. It predominantly provides the service in the Barnsley areas. At the time of this inspection the service was supporting 35 people with various care needs, from social support to maintaining people's independence with full personal care needs. Visits ranged from half an hour up to four hours for social sits and to give respite to family carers. The frequency of visits ranged from one visit per week to four visits per day depending on people individual needs.

People supported by the service and their relatives spoke very positively about Lotus Homecare. They told us they felt (their family members) were safe with the care staff from Lotus Homecare, and staff were respectful. People told us the support provided met their needs and the care staff were kind, caring and polite. People spoken with said despite having initial problems with changes in staff they now had regular care staff . They knew which care staff would be visiting to support them and care staff always arrived when they should and stayed the full length of time agreed.

We found systems were in place to make sure people received their medicines safely.

Staff recruitment procedures were thorough and ensured people’s safety was promoted. Although there had been a high turnover of staff at the service, there was now a stable staff team in place.

Staff were provided with relevant induction and training to make sure they had the right skills and knowledge for their role. Staff understood their role and what was expected of them. They were happy in their work, motivated and proud to work at the service. Staff were confident in the way the service was managed.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Each person had a support plan that accurately reflected their needs and wishes so that these could be respected. Support plans had been reviewed to ensure they remained up to date.

Complaints were recorded and dealt with in line with organisational policy. People supported, and their relatives or representatives said they could speak with staff if they had any worries or concerns and felt they would be listened to.

There were effective systems in place to monitor and improve the quality of the service provided. Regular checks and audits were undertaken to make sure full and safe procedures were adhered to.

People using the service and their relatives had been asked their opinion via surveys and the results of these surveys had been audited to identify any areas for improvement.