Advantage Health & Social Care

Advantage Health and Social Care is a domiciliary care agency. People are supported in their own homes so that they can live as independently as possible. The domiciliary care agency is registered to provide a service to younger adults, older people and people living with physical disabilities. At the time of our inspection there were 22 people using the service.

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

Improvements were required to ensure people received their medicines as prescribed. There was a lack of direction for staff administering people’s medicines. We found examples where body maps for recording the application of topical creams, were in place but these were not always completed by staff. Protocols for administering medicines as and when required (PRN) were not always in place to guide staff on administering PRN medicines. This meant there was a risk staff may not be administering the PRN medicines in a consistent way. We have made a recommendation to the provider around the management and administration of medicines.

Recruitment of staff was carried out safely. However, we could not be assured of this on the day of the inspection. The registered manager could not locate all checks for staff. For example, references and DBS checks. We were sent this information the following day.

Governance systems required further improvement. The registered manager acknowledged they required more time to do administration tasks rather than undertaking care duties. They were addressing this by trying to recruit more staff.

People received personalised care from a small, consistent staff team who knew them well and were responsive to their individual needs. Staff had a good understanding of the support people needed and provided this with compassion and care, whilst respecting their privacy and dignity.

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.

The registered manager involved people and their relatives with managing people’s care and support needs. Relatives and people felt listened to and received the care and support that met their individual needs and preferences.

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

Why we inspected

This service was registered with us on 16 October 2017 and this is the first inspection.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.