Helping Hands Leicester

At the time of inspection 80 people were receiving support with personal care. CQC only assesses support provided to people who receive the regulated activity personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided. We inspected the service due to its aged rating.

The provider needed to improve how they embedded learning and quality improvement across the organisation. Key issues, such as medicines concerns, were identified at this inspection and similar themes had been found recently at other inspections completed for this provider. Audit processes required strengthening, as governance systems did not always provide effective oversight or reliably identify where improvements were always needed. Medicines were not always managed safely.

Time to allow staff to travel between care calls was not always sufficient, which contributed to delays and variations in call times. We also found some staff were not consistently supported to take enough breaks to meet Working Time Regulations. Management team reviews did not always identify all staff affected, indicating gaps in oversight. However, staff we spoke with told us they felt supported. The provider has reviewed our findings and planned approaches to address these concerns which include additional training, oversight and adaption of the care planning system to alert teams if there were errors.

Despite these issues, people and relatives consistently described staff as kind, respectful and supportive. Staff treated people as individuals and provided care in line with their preferences. Staff had access to training, supervision and appraisal, and safe recruitment processes were in place, including references and Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.

Safeguarding concerns were managed appropriately. Staff ensured people understood their care and treatment so they could give informed consent. Where people lacked capacity, staff involved those important to them and made decisions in their best interests.