Nikee Healthcare Services

Nikee Healthcare Services is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. At the time of the inspection there were 2 people using the service. It provides a service to people living with dementia, with a learning disability or autistic spectrum disorder, mental health condition, physical disability, sensory impairment, older people, people who misuse drugs and alcohol, people with an eating disorder, and younger adults.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. 'Right support, right care, right culture' is the guidance Care Quality Commission (CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it. We considered this guidance as there were people using the service who have a learning disability and or who are autistic.

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

Right Support

People were happy with the care they received. The registered manager met with people and their relatives to review how care was received and made changes if required. Detailed assessments of a person's needs were completed before they started to receive care and support. Staff had the necessary training to carry out their roles. People’s care plans contained the necessary information to provide person centred care. People received care from regular staff which meant they knew people well and knew what was important to them.

Right Care

We made a recommendation to the provider to review their practice to ensure they were following national guidance for the safe administration of medicines. There were appropriate processes for the recruitment of care workers. The provider had effective processes in place to safeguard people from the risk of harm.

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.

Right Culture

The quality assurance and governance processes in place needed to be strengthened as they had not addressed issues, we found with the care people received. We made a recommendation to the provider to review their practice to ensure they are following national guidelines. Following our inspection feedback, the registered manager booked training to update their practice and procedures. People, relatives, and staff were positive about the registered Manager.

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

Rating at last inspection

This service was inspected but we had insufficient evidence to rate (published 13 November 2018) Following the inspection, the service was dormant till November 2021.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Nikee Healthcare Services on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Recommendation

We made two recommendations to the provider to review their medicine practice and to ensure they were working within best practice guidelines for supporting people with a learning disability and autism.

Follow up

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

Nikee Healthcare Services is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. It provides a service to people living with dementia, with a learning disability or autistic spectrum disorder, mental health condition, physical disability, sensory impairment, older people, people who misuse drugs and alcohol, people with an eating disorder, and younger adults.

Not everyone using Nikee Healthcare Services receives regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided. At the time of our inspection, only two people were in receipt of personal care and support.

Both people had been receiving personal care for less than four months. This meant that although we were able to carry out an inspection we did not find enough information and evidence about parts of the key questions we ask about services, or the experiences of people using the service, to provide a rating for each of the five questions and an overall rating for the service. We were therefore not able to rate the service against the characteristics for inadequate, requires improvement, good and outstanding ratings at this inspection.

There was a registered manager in place. However, the nominated individual who is also the owner of the service told us that the current registered manager was in the process of deregistering with us and that the nominated individual would apply to become the 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.

The provider had systems in place to help ensure people’s safety, and that they were safeguarded against avoidable harm and abuse. The management understood their responsibility in ensuring people’s safety by reducing risks associated with people's health, mobility, care and support needs, and reporting any safeguarding concerns to the local safeguarding authority and to CQC.

People's needs were assessed before they started using the service to ensure they could be met effectively. The provider involved people and their relatives where requested in the needs assessment and the care planning process.

People's care needs were met in accordance with their agreed care plan. Staff were given information that enabled them to provide personalised care.

Suitable and sufficient staff were recruited to meet people’s needs safely. Staff were provided with regular training. The provider had systems in place to provide staff with one to one supervision to enable them to provide effective care.

Staff were trained in equality and diversity. The provider encouraged lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to use the service. Staff told us they treated people equally.

People knew how to raise concerns and make a complaint.

The provider had quality assurance systems in place to assess, monitor and evaluate the quality and safety of the service.