Expert Care Solutions Ltd Fleet

Expert Care Solutions Ltd Fleet is a domiciliary homecare provider registered to provide personal care to adults, who may have a physical or learning disability, sensory impairment or dementia. They also provide care for people with an eating disorder. At the time of our inspection there were 76 people using the service.

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

People provided mixed feedback about their care. Some people felt they had experienced poor care from staff and reported they felt unsafe with them.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

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

The registered manager who was also the provider did not fully understand all of the legal requirements and their responsibilities. There had not been sufficient oversight of the service. Monitoring systems and processes had not been operated robustly, to drive improvements for people.

The provider had not operated fully robust staff recruitment processes. There had been a failure to ensure all people’s care calls were scheduled and delivered safely. A missed care call had not been reported to the relevant authority. The registered manager had not ensured all people had risk assessments in place. There was a lack of guidance for staff about the safe management of people’s health conditions. Processes and procedures were not sufficiently robust to ensure people’s medicines were always administered safely or recorded. Some people reported staff did not always wash their hands when providing their care.

People were not supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives. Staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; but the policies and systems in the service did not support this practice.

People did not all report they felt well treated by staff who provided their care. Some people felt staff lacked compassion and an interest in them. Although records showed people’s views about their care were sought, not everyone reported they felt listened to. People overall felt staff respected their dignity and privacy during the provision of their care.

The provision of people’s care was based on an assessment of their needs. People’s care was planned with them or their representative.

Staff received training for their role, and supervision and spot checks of their work. Staff supported people to eat and drink sufficient for their needs. Staff worked both together and across organisations to co-ordinate people’s care between services. Staff had completed end of life care training.

People did not all feel the service was well-led. However, staff felt well supported in their role. Staff worked with external providers and commissioners in the planning and provision of people’s care.

People were provided with information about how to complain and complaints were investigated.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection

This service was registered with us on 9 August 2022 and this is the first inspection.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

Follow up

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.