Access 24/7 Healthcare Ltd

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

Well-led – this means we looked for evidence that service leadership, management and governance assured high-quality, person-centred care; supported learning and innovation; and promoted an open, fair culture. At our last assessment we rated this key question requires improvement. At this assessment the rating has remained requires improvement. This meant the management and leadership was inconsistent. Leaders and the culture they created did not always support the delivery of high-quality, person-centred care. The service was in breach of legal regulation in relation to good governance. Systems were not robust enough to evidence effective oversight of recruitment checks.

This service scored 54 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service had a shared vision, strategy and culture. This was based on transparency, equity, equality and human rights, diversity and inclusion. The service focussed on staff engagement with people and their communities gaining an understanding of their needs. The registered manager told us they had worked hard to change the structure and processes within the service to drive improvements. The registered manager told us, “Together we have worked extremely hard to change our processes to ensure they are more robust, and we now have effective and efficient systems in place.” The management had clear values and had developed a listening culture where staff felt they were available for them to talk to.

The service fostered a positive culture where people felt they could speak up and their voice would be heard. The registered manager had a policy and processes for staff to follow on ‘whistle blowing.’  We reviewed staff meeting minutes and saw they included information about the service as well as reminders about training, staff rota’s, safeguarding, incidents and PPE. There was detailed action plans completed to evidence how issues raised were to be addressed, dates to be achieved and if actions had been resolved or remained outstanding. The registered manager also held regular discussions with people to share their thoughts about how the service was ran and to discuss the support they received and if any improvements could be made. A member of staff told us, “We have regular meetings and supervisions with the manager which is a good opportunity for us to discuss anything with them.”

Improvements had been made since our last assessment. However, the provider remained in breach of legal requirement. The quality assurance and governance arrangements in place to ensure recruitment checks were completed on staff were not always effective in identifying shortfalls. The staff file audit carried out by the HR manager identified the shortfalls we found, however, did not include action plans to evidence how issues raised were to be addressed, dates to be achieved and if actions had been resolved or remained outstanding, and did not identify the shortfalls we found. There was a lack of monitoring by the registered manager, who did not demonstrate appropriate management oversight of staff file audits. Effective auditing arrangements for recruitment checks were not in place to assess, monitor and improve recruitment practices.