Hallifax Care Limited

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. It provides a service to mainly older adults. Hallifax Care Limited provides care and support to people living in Hollingdean, Preston Park and Patcham areas of Brighton. The service was supporting over 130 people at the time of the inspection.

Not everyone using Hallifax Care Limited receives a regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with 'personal care'; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.

CQC previously carried out a comprehensive inspection of this service on 19 and 20 April 2016. The service was rated 'Good' overall and continues to provide a good service to people.

The service continued to be run by a registered manager. 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

The provider and registered manager had worked together to continuously improve the service since the last inspection. They had continued the links they had with the local community and with professionals to make sure people had the support they needed. This had made a difference to a lot of people. They continued to be good at responding to people's changing needs and working with them creatively to get the right support, this had enabled a lot of people to stay at home where they wanted to be.

Everyone we contacted or spoke with said positive things about the service provided by Hallifax Care Limited. Everyone was complimentary about the staff and management team. People continued to feel safe when staff were in their homes, risks and medicines continued to be well managed. Staff were subject to recruitment checks and were well trained and supervised.

Each person had a care plan detailing their support needs. People's wishes should they become ill were recorded in their care plans. People were involved in any assessments and felt listened to and any concerns and complaints were investigated and responded to. People were supported to make choices and decisions and staff understood their responsibilities about mental capacity and consent.

There were enough staff to cover each call and staff arrived on time and stayed for the allocated time. People told us that the service was reliable. Staff liked working for Hallifax care, some working for the agency

for several years. People told us that staff were very kind, respectful and caring.

Staff worked with people, relatives and other professionals to make sure people had the support they needed. There were links with the community and the local school recently hosted a party for people whom the agency supported to attend.

The service continued to be well led, the registered manager was skilled and experienced in leading the service. People were asked about their views of the service and these were acted on to improve the support people received. The registered manager met with people and observed the staff to make sure people continued to receive good support. The registered manager had notified CQC of incidents and events as required and displayed their rating as required.

The five questions we ask about services and what we found