The Care Bureau- Home Support Service

At the time of the assessment, The Care Bureau Home Support Service were providing personal care to 7 people whose each care calls were for a minimum of 4 hours. 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, eating and drinking. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. This was the first assessment of this service since registration, and we reviewed all 5 key questions.

As part of our assessment, we spoke with people who used the service, their relatives, staff and the registered manager. We reviewed care plans, medication records, recruitment files and quality assurance records and the provider’s electronic systems to manage care calls.

We assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted.

Staff demonstrated a good understanding of people’s individual needs. People were supported to make choices about their daily lives and to access their community. Staff said the training equipped them to meet people’s needs, however if staff needed support, some staff felt their needs were not always prioritised. Staff felt communication could be improved upon because there was limited opportunity to learn lessons or to share feedback. Staff felt management could be more supportive in resolving potential issues, rather than staff feeling it was their responsibility to find solutions.

Care plans were completed following assessment, and care plans provided good and clear instructions for staff, so they knew what to do to care for people safely. Risks were managed around people’s care delivery, including the environment in which the person lived. Staff understood their role in reporting any concerns about people’s safety and any concerns related to poor practice.

Some people self-medicated whilst others needed support from staff. Staff were trained and assessed as competent. We found improvements were required to how medicines were audited and how some medicines, for example those needing disguising in food or fluids, continued to be given safely.

The registered manager completed audits and checks however those audits did not always look at the right things, to assure themselves, all aspects of service delivery was to the standards expected. During our visit, management and a compliance manager assured us improvement would be taken and applied across this and the provider’s other registered service. This would help ensure lessons were learnt.