Westmoorland and Furness

Westmoorland and Furness is a home care service delivering care in and around the area of Barrow-In-Furness and surrounding areas. The service provides care and support to people living in their own homes. At the time of our assessment the service was supporting 36 people with personal care. The service was also registered for the treatment of disease and disorder (nursing) but was not providing anyone with this type of support at the time of the assessment. There was a lack of consistent oversight of the quality and safety of the service, and auditing processes were not always robust, and did not always accurately reflect information contained on the providers electronic care recording system. Risk assessments relating to people's health, safety and welfare were not always in place and those that were in place were not always robust. Although we saw some learning from events was shared with staff, the provider did not carry out robust or effective lessons learned. This meant opportunities to identify themes, trends or root causes were missed.

Staff were not always recruited safely, and we could not be assured that staff had the appropriate training to carry out their role competently. Although trained in moving and handling, we did not see any evidence that care staff had been assessed as competent in moving and handling. Improvements were required in how safeguarding concerns were recognised, recorded and reported by the provider.

The provider was not aware of their statutory duty to report safeguarding events to us, but they had referred safeguarding concerns to the Local Authority. Decisions taken in people's best interest, had not always been completed in line with the principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2025 (MCA). We saw a decision made in the best interest of a person who used the service that followed the principles of the MCA contained information that was contradictory.

Complaints had not always been recognised or acted upon in a timely manner. However, the provider responded quickly when these issues were brought to their attention, and addressed some of these concerns during our inspection. The deputy care manager told us that it was their intention to develop the processes and procedures with the aim of improving good practice at the service, although it was not clear how this would happen.

We saw people received their medications safely. The provider had systems in place to gather feedback from people and care staff. The provider involved people and their relatives in care planning, developing care plans and delivered care that was person centred.

Care staff told us that they felt well trained to carry out their duties and knew the needs of the people that they cared for well. They also told us that the provider was supportive, treated them well, and that they were happy working for the provider.

We have asked the provider for an action plan in response to the concerns found at this assessment.