Eldercare UK LTD

Eldercare is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses, flats in the community and specialist housing. It provides a service to older adults, younger disabled adults, and children. People's care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements.

Not everyone using Eldercare receives regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with 'personal care'; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do provide any wider social care we also take this into account. CQC does not regulate premises used for people supported in their own homes; this inspection looked at people's personal care and support. At the time of the visit there were 31 people who used the service.

The service had a registered manager however they were not present at the time of the inspection visit. 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 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

There were policies and procedures on how the service protected people against bullying, harassment, avoidable harm and abuse. Care staff had received training in safeguarding adults and knew how to report concerns. Staff had sought advice from other health and social care professionals where necessary. There were risk assessments which had been undertaken. Plans to minimise or remove risks had been drawn up and reviewed in line with the organisation's policy. These were robust and covered specific risks around people's care and specific activities they undertook in a person-centred manner. We received significantly positive comments from people about the caring nature of the staff team.

There was a medicines policy in place and staff had been trained to safely support people with their medicines.

The service had recruitment policies and procedures in place to help ensure safety in the recruitment of staff. These had been followed to ensure staff were recruited safely for the protection and wellbeing of people who used the service. Records we saw and conversations with staff showed the service had adequate care staff to ensure that people's needs were sufficiently met. Staff had visited people at agreed times.

Staff skills knowledge, training and support demonstrated a commitment to providing a good quality of

care.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible. However; knowledge and application of the mental capacity principles required further improvements. The care manager informed us people's consent was sought. However, care records did not demonstrate how mental capacity had been considered. We have made a recommendation about staff knowledge and understanding on the subject of mental capacity and best interests' decisions.

Care plans were in place detailing how people wished to be supported.

We found people had been assisted to have access to healthcare professionals and their healthcare needs were met.

People who used the service and their relatives knew how to raise a concern or to make a complaint. The complaints procedure was available and people said they were encouraged to raise concerns.

The registered manager used a variety of methods to assess and monitor the quality of service provided to people. These included regular internal audits of the service, surveys and staff and review meetings to seek the views of people about the quality of care being provided.

The five questions we ask about services and what we found