Radfield Homecare Liverpool North and Sefton and Ormskirk

This was the first rated inspection for Radfield Home Care. The service has been registered for almost 12 months and has been providing personal care since January 2018.

Radfield Home Care is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community. It provides a service to adults. At the time of the inspection 20 people were using the service.

Not everyone using Radfield Home Care receives regulated activity; Care Quality Commission only inspects the service being received by people provided with 'personal care'; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.

There was no registered manager at the service. 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.

The last manager had left in July 2018. The current manager had been in the post for seven weeks and had started the process to be the registered manager.

Staff had been appropriately recruited to ensure they were suitable to work with vulnerable adults. There was enough staff employed by the service to help people with their day to day support needs at the times they wanted.

There were systems and processes in place to ensure that people who lived received a service were safeguarded from abuse. This included training for staff. Staff we spoke with confirmed they knew how to raise concerns.

There was a process for recording, reporting and analysing incidents, accidents and general near misses to determine what could be improved within the service provision.

Risk assessments and support plans had been completed for everyone who received care to help ensure people's needs were met and to protect people from the risk of harm.

There was personal protective equipment (PPE) available for use, such as gloves and aprons. Staff confirmed they had good supplies of gloves and aprons when supporting people with personal care.

The service supported people with medication. Medication was administered by staff who had the correct

training to enable them to do this. Records were kept in line with current guidance.

The service was operating in accordance with the principles of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and consent was sought in line with people's best interests. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service support this practice.

Staff received training to enable them to support people safely and training records confirmed this. Staff engaged in regular supervision with their manager.

People were treated as individuals, and their choices and preferences were respected by staff.

People's care plans were person centred and contained details about the person, their likes, dislikes, how they wanted to be supported and what they could do for themselves.

People's dietary needs were managed with reference to individual preferences and choice.

There was a complaints process in place which. There had been no complaints since the service started providing support.

A quality assurance system was in place; on-going audits and checks were completed to ensure standards were monitored effectively.

Checks were made to people who used the service by telephone or in person to ensure the care was safe and was meeting people's needs.

The service worked in partnership with other professionals such as the local authorities, and district nurses.

Further information is in the detailed findings below.

The five questions we ask about services and what we found