Hearts at Home Care Fordingbridge improved from Requires Improvement to Good overall, having remediated a prior breach in recruitment and addressing previous shortfalls in governance, record keeping and auditing. All five key questions were rated Good, with people and relatives reporting safe, caring and responsive support from well-trained staff operating within a strengthened quality assurance framework.
Concerns (4)
moderate
Medication management
: “Some people had medicines prescribed they could take as and when needed. There were no instructions for staff about when such a medicine could be administered and the total amount that could be taken in one day.”
minorRecord keeping: “Written information was not always sufficiently detailed and body maps were not always used to ensure staff had guidance about where and when topical medicines should be applied.”
minorGovernance: “A number of people, relatives and staff raised issues about the delivery of rotas. Many said they did not receive them, or they arrived late, and staff said they had difficulty accessing them on the electronic system.”
minorCommunication with families: “Some staff told us there were issues with the scheduling of visits to people, the time it took to travel between calls and communication between the office and the staff out providing care.”
Strengths
· Previous breach of Regulation 19 (Fit and proper persons employed) remediated; safe recruitment practices now in place.
· Sufficient staffing levels with flexibility to meet people's changing needs and consistent carer allocation.
· Staff completed comprehensive induction, ongoing training, regular supervision and competency checks including medicines management.
· Effective multi-agency working with GPs, district nurses and other health professionals achieving good outcomes.
· Governance and quality assurance systems significantly improved since previous inspection, including audits, spot checks and annual surveys.