Home First - Cannock

Home First - Cannock is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to 35 people aged 65 and over at the time of the inspection. The number of people being supported varied from day to day due to people being discharged from hospital or people no longer needing the support.

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 kept safe as staff understood their safeguarding responsibilities and plans were in place to mitigate risks to people. We have made a recommendation about staff knowing to report their concerns to the local safeguarding authority. People were supported to have their prescribed medicines. We have made a recommendation about ‘as and when required’ medicines. Lessons were learned when things had gone wrong and action was taken to protect people. There enough safely-recruited staff to support people safely, with recruitment ongoing. People were protected from the risk of cross infection as staff used appropriate protective clothing.

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 had access to a range of other health professionals and were supported to have food and drinks that were appropriate for their needs. Staff received training to be effective in their role.

People felt staff were kind and felt they were treated with respect. People were supported to maintain their dignity and be involved in decisions about their care. People retained and regained, where possible, their independence.

People had personalised plans of care and calls were flexible to allow people’s changing needs. People felt able to complain but had not felt the need to. Consideration had been given to people’s end of life preferences, but no one was being supported at the end of their life at the time of the inspection.

Systems were in place and effective at identifying areas to improve the quality of people’s care. Staff felt positively about the registered manager and felt supported in their role. The registered manager and staff were confident in their roles and understood their responsibilities. The service engaged with people and staff to ensure feedback was gathered to improve the service. The service also worked in partnership to ensure effective outcomes for people. Continuous learning was being applied following incidents, spot checks and new guidance being released.

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 registered with us on 11/06/2018 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the date of registration.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.