About the service Essential Care Support is a community-based care provider that provides personal care to people living in their own homes. At the time of inspection there were 42 people including younger adults, older people living with dementia, people living with a physical disability or sensory impairment, in receipt of the regulated activity of personal care.
Everyone who received support at the time of our inspection 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
People received risk-based care, staff used risk assessments and risk management tools that mitigated risks to people. Recruitment processes helped to ensure staff were recruited safely. There were sufficient staff to support people safely with their scheduled care calls. Staff had received training in safeguarding and knew the actions to take to keep people safe. Overall, people's medicines were managed safely. The provider had infection control policies and procedures in place to guide staff on how to reduce the risk of infections.
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 the assessment of people’s mental capacity to determine how and when best interests decisions were made. Staff received induction and training in their role. The service worked with health and social care professionals to improve outcomes for people.
There was not a registered manager in place at the time of our inspection visit. The management team worked together to implement audits and governance systems to identify areas of improvement. Staff spoke positively about leaders at the service.
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 August 2018). At this inspection this rating has remained the same.
Why we inspected
This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions of Safe, Effective and Well-led which contain those requirements. The ratings from the previous comprehensive inspection for those key questions not looked at on this occasion were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection. The overall rating for the service has remained as good.
You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for Essential Care Support on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.