North Home Care

Updated 13 June 2023

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

This inspection was undertaken by one inspector.

Service and service type

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave a short period notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 31 May 2023 and ended on 08 June 2023. We visited the location’s office on 31 May 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought and received feedback from health and social care professionals who work with the service. The provider was not asked to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR) prior to this inspection. A PIR is information providers send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 4 people who used the service and their relatives. We also received written feedback from 7 others. We spoke with 9 staff, including the registered manager, office staff, senior care staff and carers. We looked at care records for 4 people and medicines records. We looked at recruitment records for two new staff members and reviewed records relating to the management of the service.

Updated 13 June 2023

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 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.

At the time of the inspection, the location did not care or support for anyone with a learning disability or an autistic person. However, we assessed the care provision under Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture, as it is registered as a specialist service for this population group.

About the service

North Home Care is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to 31 people at the time of the inspection. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. The Care Quality Commission (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

Right Support:

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. Staff supported people to take risks where this was appropriate. Plans were in place to minimise risks to people to enable people to be supported with their choices.

People were invited to provide feedback about the service and their support on a regular basis. People told us they felt staff listened to them.

Right Care:

People’s care plans reflected their needs and the service had sufficient staff to meet people’s needs. Staff had undertaken the training they needed to support people effectively.

Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse and how to raise concerns. There were sufficient infection control processes in place to keep people safe. The provider checked to ensure staff were following good hygiene practices.

Where people received support with their medicines people received their medicines as prescribed.

Right Culture:

Auditing had improved and was used to support and drive forward improvements. Where improvements were identified action was taken. Staff were happy in their role and told us they felt well supported.

The service worked in partnership with other organisations to improve outcomes for people.

Incidents were reported and action taken to minimise risks to people. Staff were recruited safely.

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 requires improvement, (published on 09 July 2019). There were no breaches of regulation. At this inspection we found the service had improved.

Why we inspected

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

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

The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good based on the findings of this inspection.

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

Enforcement and Recommendations

Since the last inspection we recognised that the provider had failed to ensure their rating was displayed. This was a breach of regulation, and we issued a fixed penalty notice. The provider accepted a fixed penalty and paid this in full.

Follow up

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