New Hope Care Ltd

Updated 6 January 2024

The inspection

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. We checked whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act. We looked at the overall quality of the service and provided a rating for the service under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection was undertaken by 1 inspector.

Service and service type

This service provides care and support to people living in 3 ‘supported living’ settings, so that they can live as independently as possible. People’s care and housing are provided under separate contractual agreements. CQC does not regulate premises used for supported living; this inspection looked at people’s personal care and support.

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post. However, the registered manager was not present during the inspection.

Notice of inspection

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.

Inspection activity started on 22 November 2023 and ended on 30 November 2023. We visited people on 28 November 2023 and the office on 29 November 2023. Telephone calls were undertaken to relatives on 23 November 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 3 people who used the service and 2 relatives to gain their feedback about their experiences of using the service. We spoke with 5 staff which included care support staff, care manager and operations manager. We reviewed and sampled a range of documents and records including the care and medicine records for 3 people, and 4 staff recruitment files. We also looked at records related to the management and quality assurance of the service.

Updated 6 January 2024

About the service

New Hope Care Ltd is a domiciliary and ‘supported living’ service that provides personal care and support to people living in their own homes. The provider is registered to support people with a variety of needs including people who live with dementia, people who misuse drugs and alcohol, people with an eating disorder, people with mental health needs and people with a learning disability, and autistic people. At the time of the inspection the provider was supporting 5 people with learning disabilities/ autistic people.

Some people were supported by staff who lived in people’s homes and provided 24 hour support to people.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.

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

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.

Right Support:

Risks to people were not always assessed and records required more detail with actions for staff to follow. Improvements were required with the management of medicines to ensure records were accurate and staff had guidance for when to administer ‘as required’ and covert medicines.

People were supported to have choice and control over their own daily lives. The policies and systems in the service supported this practice. However the provider did not fully understand their duties under right support, right care, and right culture in relation to supported living and service models to protect people’s choice and rights in relation to their tenancy and choice of provider.

People were supported by a consistent staff team who knew them well and understood their needs.

Right Care:

Staff understood how to protect people from poor care and abuse. Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse and they knew how to apply it. Staff promoted equality and diversity. They understood people's cultural needs and provided culturally appropriate care. Staff protected and respected people's privacy and dignity.

Right Culture:

Improvements were needed to the current systems to make them more effective to monitor the quality of the service and to drive improvements. Audits were not always effective in identifying shortfalls in care practices.

People and those important to them, were involved in planning their care. The care manager and operations manager were open and transparent throughout our inspection and demonstrated a commitment to delivering improvements and achieving best outcomes for people. They were receptive to our feedback and took action to address the shortfalls we found.

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

Rating at last inspection and update.

The last rating for the service was requires improvement (published 23 February 2017).

Why we inspected

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

We undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only. For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

The overall rating for the service has remained requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection. We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and well led key question sections of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for New Hope Care Ltd on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Enforcement

We have identified breaches in relation to the management of risk and how the provider monitors the service provided.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

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.