Marches Home Care Services received a Good rating across all five key questions at its June 2016 inspection, with 27 people receiving personalised, safe and effective care in their own homes. The service demonstrated strong leadership, a transparent culture, well-trained staff and robust quality monitoring systems with no areas of concern identified.
Strengths
· Staff demonstrated clear understanding of safeguarding, abuse types, and reporting procedures
· Robust safe recruitment including DBS checks and written references before staff commenced work
· Medicines support provided by trained and competent staff with spot-check audits by the registered manager
· Personalised, regularly reviewed care plans developed with involvement of people and their families
· Strong person-centred culture with staff building genuine relationships and respecting privacy and dignity
Marches Home Care Services achieved an overall Good rating with an Outstanding well-led domain, demonstrating a deeply person-centred culture, strong community engagement, and consistent positive outcomes for the 28 people supported. The sole minor gap identified was the absence of clearly documented signed consent in care records, which the management team committed to rectify during the inspection.
Concerns (1)
minorConsent / capacity: “signed consent for care and treatment was not clearly documented. We discussed this with the management team and they agreed to make amendments to care records”
Strengths
· Outstanding leadership with a well-understood, person-centred culture consistently exceeding people's expectations
· Training individualised to each staff member's learning style, including specialist foot care training invested in response to identified community need
· Strong community engagement including free public health awareness sessions and multi-agency partnerships
· Staff went above and beyond, with caring relationships extending to bereaved family members long after care ended
· Medicines managed safely in line with NICE 2018 guidance with regular management observations of administration
Quality-Statement breakdown (21)
safe: Systems and processes to safeguard people from the risk of abuseGood
safe: Using medicines safelyGood
safe: Staffing and recruitmentGood
safe: Preventing and controlling infectionGood
safe: Learning lessons when things go wrongGood
effective: Staff support: induction, training, skills and experienceGood
effective: Ensuring consent to care and treatment in line with law and guidanceGood
effective: Assessing people's needs and choices; delivering care in line with standards, guidance and the lawGood
effective: Supporting people to eat and drink enough to maintain a balanced dietGood
effective: Staff working with other agencies to provide consistent, effective, timely careGood
effective: Adapting service to meet people's needsGood
caring: Ensuring people are well treated and supported; respecting equality and diversityGood
caring: Respecting and promoting people's privacy, dignity and independenceGood
caring: Supporting people to express their views and be involved in making decisions about their careGood
responsive: Planning personalised care to meet people's needs, preferences, interests and give them choice and controlGood
responsive: End of life care and supportGood
responsive: Improving care quality in response to complaints or concernsGood
well-led: Planning and promoting person-centred, high-quality care and openness; duty of candour; working in partnershipOutstanding
well-led: Engaging and involving people using the service, the public and staffOutstanding
well-led: Managers and staff are clear about their roles, and understand quality performance, risks and regulatory requirementsOutstanding
well-led: Continuous learning and improving careOutstanding