First Choice Home Care (Halesworth)

First Choice Home Care (Halesworth) is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to adults. At the time of this inspection 92 people were receiving a 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

People were safeguarded from the risk of harm or abuse. Staff were recruited safely and there were enough staff on duty to meet people's needs. People had risk assessments to reduce the risk of harm they may face. People were protected from the risks associated from the spread of infection. Medicines were managed safely. The provider had a system in place to learn lessons from accidents and incidents.

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.

People, relatives and staff mostly spoke positively about the leadership in the service. The service recognised challenges and had actions in place to address them.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. Right support, right care, right culture is the statutory guidance which supports CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people. We considered this guidance as there were people using the service who have a learning disability and or who are autistic.

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 6 February 2019).

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to the capacity of the service. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, effective, and well-led only. We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe, effective, and well-led sections of this full report.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for First Choice Home Care (Halesworth) on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

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

People’s experience of using this service:

People received a good service and felt safe with the support they received from the staff. People were supported by staff who were well trained and supported to carry out their job role safely. People received the support they needed to take their medicines safely and as their prescriber intended. Risks to people’s well-being and safety had been considered, recorded and mitigated against wherever possible.

People felt involved in their care, were asked for their views and felt that their views mattered. Individual’s care needs were well known by the staff who were supporting them. People received care in a manner which was in accordance with the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. People were given the information needed to make informed choices, and their choices were respected. Where required, people were supported with their meals to their liking.

People received caring and kind support from care staff. The management team also frequently delivered people’s care and therefore also knew people very well. This enabled them to lead by example. Staff referred to people in a caring way. People were complimentary about staff and were positive about the caring relationships they were able to form with them. Staff consistently respected people's privacy and dignity and people were supported to be as independent as possible.

People who used the service and the staff thought highly of the acting manager and the provider organisation. People, their relatives and staff consistently told us they would positively recommend the service to other people. Staff felt they were supported and listened to and were given the opportunity to raise any queries or concerns. Staff were knowledgeable about people's preferences and routines and were supported in their own training and development.

The service was run by a clearly dedicated management team who demonstrated kindness and a commitment to the needs of the people who used the service as well as the staff who worked for them.

Rating at last inspection: This was the first rating’s inspection for the service.

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the period of time since the service first registered with CQC.