Home Instead Senior Care

Introduction

Home Instead Senior Care provides some domiciliary care services to people who live in their own home. At the time of our inspection there were 31 people with a variety of care needs, including people with physical disabilities or mental health needs, who used the service. The company is managed from a centrally located office base in Ormskirk.

We chose to inspect this service as part of our second wave of pilot inspections using our new methodology looking at the overall quality of the service – is it safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.

The provider was given 48 hours' notice of our intention to inspect the service. This is in line with our current methodology for inspecting domiciliary care agencies.

The inspection team consisted of a lead inspector and an expert by experience.

During the inspection we spoke with seven people who used the service or their relatives. We also sent people who used the service a questionnaire about their experiences and received eleven responses.

We spoke with the registered manager, a director of the service, the care manager and four care workers. In addition, nine external professionals shared their experiences and opinions of the service with us. They included community nursing staff, GPs and social workers.

We spoke with people who used the service or visited them in their own homes. We observed staff providing support and interacting with people.

We inspected a variety of records including three care plans belonging to people who used the service.

The views of people receiving care from Home Instead Senior Care West Lancashire and Chorley – owned by Robert and Gail Godson – were "overwhelmingly positive," comments Debbie Westhead, Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care in the North. "And this view was shared by community health and social care professionals who reported excellent links with the company," she says.

Holistic, person-centred care

Debbie continues: "Managers spoke passionately about the importance of holistic, person-centred care that focused on the needs of the individual, and we saw that staff were committed to putting these values into practice on a day to day basis."

We inspected the Home Instead Senior Care in July 2014. Its inspection report – one of the first in the adult social care sector with an overall rating of 'outstanding' – highlights the company's emphasis on compassion, respect and dignity, as well as its flexibility and responsiveness to people's changing needs.

Areas of outstanding practice

Some of the strengths identified in the report include:

• Staff demonstrated a good understanding of people's needs and how to support their safety and wellbeing.
• Care visits lasted for a minimum of an hour, which meant staff could spend time with the people in their care, helping them to build up a relationship and fully understand the things that were important to them.
• Our inspectors saw effective processes to ensure that any concerns about a person using the service were recorded, so that their wellbeing could be monitored.
• Ongoing training was tailored to individual members of staff and their particular development needs, and there was a robust induction programme.
• The service found innovative ways of supporting important areas of wellbeing – such as introducing a weekly menu planner for people who needed support at mealtimes.
• Care planning addressed social and emotional needs as well as health and physical ones – for example identifying the risk of isolation or the loss of independence.
• Managers had developed a positive culture based on strong values, which they promoted through training, supervision and strong leadership.

Home Instead also won praise for its strong links in the local community. One initiative the report highlights is the registered manager's delivery of dementia awareness training to the public – including bank and shop staff – to help them understand how to help people with dementia they come into contact with.

Above and beyond

"What was particularly striking about Home Instead Senior Care was the outstanding feedback we got from people who used the service and community professionals," says inspector Marie Cordingley. "We heard so many examples from them explaining how the service had 'gone the extra mile' or 'above and beyond'. They had really succeeded in translating their strong values into practice and that resulted in the sort of care we would all want for our loved ones."

Home Instead Senior Care West Lancashire and Chorley is part of national home care provider Home Instead Senior Care UK.

Trevor Brocklebank, Home Instead Senior Care's Chief Executive, said: "I applaud the CQC’s new rating system. It places more emphasis on the person receiving the care – that means real lives are better recognised – and that has to be welcomed.

"I believe the new ratings system recognises the difference quality care provision makes to real lives across the care landscape. That's the lives of our clients foremost but also our CAREGivers and Care Managers as well as the care professionals that we partner with – to realise our passion for excellence in care delivery on a daily basis."