Archived: Advinia Home Care

Advinia Home Care provides support and personal care to people living at home. At the time of our inspection there were two people currently receiving support with personal care. The provision of personal care is regulated by the Care Quality Commission.

There was a manager in post who had applied to be registered with the Care Quality Commission. 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People told us they were well treated by the staff and felt safe and trusted them.

The service was not following appropriate recruitment procedures to ensure that only suitable staff were employed at the agency.

Staff could explain how they would recognise and report abuse and they understood their responsibilities in keeping people safe.

Where any risks to people’s safety had been identified, the management had thought about and discussed with the person ways to mitigate risks.

People who used the service and their relatives were positive about the staff and told us they had confidence in their abilities and staff told us that they were provided with training in the areas they needed in order to support people effectively.

Staff understood that it was not right to make choices for people when they could make choices for themselves and people’s ability around decision-making, preferences and choices were recorded in their care plans and followed by staff.

People told us they were happy with the support they received with eating and drinking and staff were aware of people’s dietary requirements and preferences.

People confirmed that they were involved in the planning of their care and support. Care plans included the views of people using the service and their relatives. Relatives told us they were kept up to date about any changes by staff at the office.

People and their relatives told us that the management and staff were quick to respond to any changes in their needs. Care plans reflected how people were supported to receive care and treatment in accordance with their current needs and preferences.

People told us they had no complaints about the service but said they felt able to raise any concerns without worry.

The agency had a number of quality monitoring systems including six monthly surveys for people using the service and their relatives. People we spoke with confirmed that they were asked about the quality of the service and had made comments about this. They felt the service took their views into account in order to improve service delivery.

We identified a breach of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. This breach was in relation to staff recruitment. You can see what action we told the provider to take at the back of the full version of the report.

We spoke with two people using the service, three staff and the acting manager of the agency and we looked at staff records. We found that systems to provide supervision and appraisals had been improved. We spoke to the three of the four staff currently employed by the agency. They told us that things were much better and that they were satisfied with the level of support they were receiving.

There was no registered manager for this service at the time of our inspection. However we saw that recruitment to the post was expected by the end of September.

The provider had systems to regularly assess and monitor the quality of service that people received. For example, results from recent surveys sent to people demonstrated overall satisfaction with the services provided, and did not suggest any specific areas for improvement.

We found that there were enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff to ordinarily meet people's needs. However, feedback from staff and relatives indicated insufficient support of staff by the agency. Records demonstrated irregular staff supervision across the year, and that staff had not received a performance appraisal. We found that support arrangements were not suitable to enable staff to deliver care to people safely and to an appropriate standard.