Banbury care service rating reduced to 'requires improvement' after concerns provoke inspection

Healthcare Access Ltd is a domiciliary care agency providing care to people in their own homes in the Oxfordshire area.

The inspection was prompted in part due to concerns received about the service relating to care plans, staffing and medicines.

The inspectors’ report, published on August 7, showed reduced ratings under the headings safe, effective, responsive and well led from good to requires improvement. The rating for caring remained ‘good’.

At the time of the CQC’s inspection, 19 people were receiving the regulated activity of personal care from the service. Not everyone using the service received personal care, which is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating.

At the time of the Healthcare Access Ltd inspection, the location did not provide personal care for anyone with a learning disability or an autistic person. However, they assessed the care provision under Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture, as it is registered as a specialist service for this population group.

Right Support: inspectors found that people were not always supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff did not always support them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests.

Right Care: people and their relatives were happy with the care they received from the service. People felt staff members were friendly and treated people with kindness and warmth.

Right Culture: Care plans contained detailed information about people, their likes and dislikes but did not always contain information specific to people's needs or how to manage conditions or risks, as appropriate documentation was not always in place.

The provider did not operate effective quality assurance systems to oversee the service. These systems did not identify shortfalls in the quality and safety of the service.

Risk assessments were not always updated to accurately reflect people's risks. There was conflicting information about people's ability and health conditions within their risk assessments.

The inspectors found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. They identified breaches in relation to regulation 11 - consent for care, regulation 12 - safe care and treatment, regulation 14 - meeting nutritional and hydration needs and regulation 17 - good governance.

An inspector said: “We gave the service 48 hours' notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

“We will request an action plan from the provider to understand what they will do to improve the standards of quality and safety. We will work alongside the provider and local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.”

Feedback was sought from the local authority and professionals who work with the service prior to the inspection in June.

The last rating for Healthcare Access Ltd, Banbury was good in December 2021. To see the full report with details of what the inspectors found, see here.