Loving Angels Care (West Northamptonshire)

Loving Angels Care (Northampton) is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people living in their own homes. 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. At the time of the inspection 80 people were receiving personal care.

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

Medicine management required improvements. Records were not always clear regarding administration, dosage and reasons for ‘as required’ medicines being given.

Risks were not always assessed or mitigated. People with known risks did not always have details for staff regarding how to respond to certain situations.

Some people and relatives did not always feel staff stayed the allocated time. Records were not consistently completed to evidence support was offered for tasks required.

Care plans required more information to support staff in understanding people’s individual needs and what activities they required support with.

Systems and processes to ensure oversight of service required improvement. Audits completed did not always identify shortfalls.

Staff received training and support when they started with the company and training was then ongoing. However, some training was not evidenced.

People were supported by staff who knew them well and had been safely recruited. People told us they felt safe with staff. Staff wore appropriate personal protective equipment and followed government guidance on COVID-19.

Staff felt supported within their roles and described the registered manager as approachable and supportive.

People were supported to access healthcare as required and people told us staff supported them in being referred to specialist professionals such as occupational therapist.

People, relatives and staff were offered the opportunity to feedback on the service. Action plans were then completed in response to these. Lessons learnt were shared with staff to improve the service.

People described staff as kind, caring and respectful. Staff were aware of how to report any concerns about neglect or abuse and were confident if they raised a concern It would be addressed.

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.

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 the service under the previous provider was requires improvement, (published 28 November 2019). The service remains rated requires improvement.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection due to the change of provider .

Enforcement and Recommendations

We are mindful of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our regulatory function. This meant we took account of the exceptional circumstances arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when considering what enforcement action was necessary and proportionate to keep people safe as a result of this inspection. We will continue to monitor the service and will take further action if needed.

We have identified breaches in relation to medicines, risk assessment and oversight at this inspection.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

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