Care 4 U – 466 Melton Road was rated Good overall following a focused inspection in April 2021, with Safe remaining Good and Well-Led remaining Requires Improvement. Key shortfalls centred on inconsistent office communication with people and relatives, and incomplete complaints record-keeping, while care delivery, infection control, and medicines management were found to be safe and effective.
Concerns (4)
moderateCommunication with families: “Communication with the office staff is the main area of frustration, it's a bit hit and miss, it depends who you speak with as to whether anything gets done.”
minorRecord keeping: “some of the records had not been fully completed to evidence an audit trail from when the complaint was received and concluded.”
minor
Complaints handling
: “records of complaints needed to be recorded in more detail to clearly evidence when they were brought to the providers attention, the dates of investigation and conclusion.”
minorPerson-centred care: “some relatives commented they would like to have access to the support plans that were now held electronically; some said they would also like to have paper copies of the support plans kept within their homes.”
Strengths
· Staff followed COVID-19 infection prevention and control guidance consistently, including correct use of PPE and hand hygiene.
· People were supported by a core group of staff with whom they had developed positive relationships, described as kind and caring.
· Safe recruitment practices were in place, including induction, training, and shadowing of experienced staff.
· Medicines were administered safely with staff competency assessed through spot checks.
· Risk assessments were in place and regularly monitored, with concerns escalated to relevant healthcare professionals.
Care 4 U is a domiciliary care agency providing support to people in their own homes. Not everyone using Care 4 U received a regulated activity. CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with 'personal care' for help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. At the time of the inspection the service was supporting 73 people who were in receipt of personal care. We visited the office on 22 April and 17 May 2024. On 24 April 2024 an expert by experience made telephone calls to 5 people and their relatives. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. We reviewed 7 quality statements in the key question of safe and 6 quality statements in the key question of well-led. For those key questions and quality statements not reviewed at this inspection we have combined the scores for these areas from the last inspection.
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