HICA HomeCare - Doncaster

The inspection took place on 6 and 7 November 2018 with the registered provider being given short notice of the visits to the office, in line with our current methodology for inspecting domiciliary care agencies. At our last inspection in March 2016 we rated the service 'Good'. At this inspection we found the evidence continued to support the rating of 'Good' and there was no evidence or information from our inspection and ongoing monitoring that demonstrated serious risks or concerns.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for 'HICA HomeCare - Doncaster' on our website at www.cqc.org.uk'.

The service had a registered manager in post at the time of our inspection. 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Overall, people were happy with the quality of the care the service provided and how it was run, but a few people felt timings of calls and consistency of the care workers visiting them could be improved. People said care workers met their needs and delivered their care as they preferred. People told us their privacy and dignity was respected and staff were competent in their work, kind, friendly and helpful.

There were systems in place to reduce the risk of abuse and to assess and monitor potential risks to individual people. Concerns, complaints, incidents and accidents were being effectively monitored and analysed to reduce risks to people.

Recruitment processes helped the employer make safer recruitment decisions when employing staff. Staff had undertaken a structured induction, essential training, and received regular support to help develop their knowledge and skills so they could effectively meet people's needs.

Medication was administered as prescribed by staff who had been trained to carry out this role and whose competency was checked regularly.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible. People had consented to their planned care and staff understood the importance of gaining people's consent and acting in their best interest.

People had been involved in care assessments and developing their care plans. Plans provided clear guidance to staff, which assisted them to deliver the care people needed, in the way they preferred.

People were enabled to raise complaints and concerns. The people we spoke with told us they would feel comfortable raising concerns, if they had any. When concerns had been raised the correct procedure had been used to record, investigate and resolve issues.

There were systems in place to continuously assess and monitor the quality of the service. This included obtaining people's views and checking staff were following the correct procedures.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.

The five questions we ask about services and what we found