Blessed Caring Services Limited

The provider could not always show that it assessed people’s needs and risks before care started or reviewed them when their needs changed. Care records did not always give staff clear guidance about risks, communication, health monitoring or how to support people to make decisions. Medicines records did not clearly show when staff gave medicines to people. Recruitment records did not show that the provider had completed all required checks before staff started work.

Leaders had completed audits, held meetings and developed an improvement plan. However, these systems had not identified or addressed gaps in care planning, medicines management and recruitment practices. Management responsibilities were not clearly defined. The provider could not demonstrate how it learned from incidents, concerns, feedback and training or how it monitored whether improvements were effective. The service was in breach of regulations relating to safe care and treatment and good governance.

People received care from a small and consistent staff team. Relatives described staff as kind, reliable and flexible. Staff shared updates through the electronic care system, telephone calls, handovers and meetings. They said they reported changes so managers could seek advice from health and care professionals when needed. Staff also supported people to access specialist advice and equipment and met people’s routine care needs. We found no evidence of missed visits, abuse or avoidable harm.

At the time of our assessment, the service was supporting people with a learning disability. However, the provider’s Statement of Purpose and registered service user bands did not accurately reflect the range of people using the service. We asked the provider to update its Statement of Purpose and notify CQC of this change.

We assessed the service against ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ guidance to make judgements about whether the provider guaranteed autistic people and people with a learning disability respect, equality, dignity, choices, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. The provider was not delivering care in line with this guidance and improvements were needed by the provider.