J.C.Michael Groups Ltd Barnet is a domiciliary care agency registered to provide personal care to people in their own homes. The service provides support to people of all ages and different abilities. At the time of this assessment, they supported 133 people who received personal care. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspect the service 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. We conducted this assessment to follow up on concerns we identified at the last inspection. These included breaches of Regulations relating to staffing and governance. The last rating for this service was requires improvement (published 1 June 2023). At this assessment we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of Regulations. Assessment activity started on 9 April 2025 and ended on 29 April 2025. There was a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the CQC to manage the service. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service operates. We assessed all the quality statements from the safe, caring and well-led key questions. The overall rating for the service has improved from requires improvement to good.
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J.C.Michael Groups Ltd Barnet was rated Requires Improvement overall following a April 2023 inspection, with breaches of Regulation 17 (Good Governance) and Regulation 18 (Staffing) due to care workers routinely not staying for agreed visit durations and ineffective audit and incident-recording systems. Caring, Effective and Responsive domains were rated Good, reflecting kind and personalised care, robust risk assessments and safe medicines management.
Concerns (7)
criticalMissed or late visits: “numerous visits where staff had logged in as being at people's home for less than the agreed visit duration...15 minutes or less where the agreed visit time was 30 minutes”
criticalGovernance: “current auditing systems in place were not robust enough to show that the quality of the service had been assessed and improvements to the safety and quality of the services being provided”
criticalIncident learning: “two separate incidents of falls...had not been recorded as incidents on the appropriate incident/accident form and there was a lack of information as to what action was taken”
criticalStaffing levels: “staff were not always adequately deployed so care workers stayed the full duration of the visits”
moderateRecord keeping: “failed to consistently maintain records in accordance with their policy...failed to maintain accurate and consistent incident/accident records and record outcomes of complaints consistently”
moderateStaff training: “some staff required refresher training as their training had recently expired...supervision notes we reviewed lacked detail”
moderateSupervision / appraisal: “supervision notes...were generic and lacked detail about what was discussed during these sessions...not evident that supervision sessions were tailored to individual care workers”
Strengths
· Medicines management was safe; MAR records mostly fully completed and staff received medicines training with competency checks.
· Risk assessments were robust, comprehensive, person-centred and updated when people's needs changed.
· People felt safe with care workers; safeguarding systems and training were in place.
· Care workers were described as kind, respectful and consistent, with good staff-to-person matching based on personality and cultural needs.
· Care plans were personalised, including 'a little about me' sections and details of people's preferences.
Quality-Statement breakdown (21)
safe: Staffing and deploymentRequires improvement
safe: Learning lessons when things go wrongRequires improvement
safe: Assessing risk, safety monitoring and managementGood
safe: Using medicines safelyGood
safe: Systems and processes to safeguard people from the risk of abuseGood
safe: Preventing and controlling infectionGood
effective: Staff support: induction, training, skills and experienceRequires improvement
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 standardsGood
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
caring: Ensuring people are well treated and supported; respecting equality and diversityGood
caring: Supporting people to express their views and be involved in making decisions about their careGood
caring: Respecting and promoting people's privacy, dignity and independenceGood
responsive: Planning personalised care to ensure people have choice and controlGood
responsive: Meeting people's communication needsGood
responsive: Improving care quality in response to complaints or concernsGood
responsive: End of life care and supportGood
well-led: Managers and staff being clear about their roles, and understanding quality performance, risks and regulatory requirementsRequires improvement
well-led: Promoting a positive culture that is person-centred, open, inclusive and empoweringGood
well-led: Engaging and involving people using the service, the public and staffGood