Premium Care Solutions Limited

About the service

Premium Care Solutions Limited is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people living in their own homes. 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. At the time of the inspection 30 people were receiving personal care.

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

Medicine management required improvement. We found concerns relating to the information documented and the recording of medicines. The provider agreed to ensure improvements were made.

Some aspects of people’s care records did not contain their full holistic needs. However, people had risk assessments in place to support staff in understanding the person.

Some areas of management oversight required improvement. Audits needed to be more robust in identifying any improvements required. The registered manager and provider put an action plan into place immediately after the site visit to identify where improvements were needed.

People were supported by a consistent staff team who knew them well and had received training on their specific needs. Staff asked for consent before completing tasks.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Staff were recruited safely and had a good understanding of safeguarding and how to raise any concerns they may have. People and their relatives were invited to be part of the recruitment process.

People were protected against infection by staff who received training on infection control and who wore appropriate personal protective equipment.

People and their relatives were all positive about the support they received and the skills of the staff who supported them. People and their relatives were involved in care planning and were able to share their feedback on the service.

The service supported people with any communication needs they may have. Information could be provided in a variety of formats to ensure people could understand.

The service worked closely in partnership with other professionals to ensure good outcomes for people.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 11 September 2018)

Why we inspected

This was a planned pilot virtual inspection. The report was created as part of a pilot which looked at new and innovative ways of fulfilling CQC’s regulatory obligations and responding to risk in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. This was conducted with the consent of the provider. Unless the report says otherwise, we obtained the information in it without visiting the Provider.

The pilot inspection considered the key questions of safe and well-led and provides a rating for those key questions. Only parts of the effective, caring and responsive key questions were considered, and therefore the ratings for these key questions are those awarded at the last inspection.

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

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.

Premium Care Solutions is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to adults, younger adults, children, and people with physical and mental disabilities, living in the community throughout the United Kingdom. The service can also provide specialist short term placement care in the heart of Northamptonshire for people with complex needs including ventilation dependency, spinal cord injury, brain injury and tetraplegia.

Not everyone using Premium Care Solutions receives a regulated activity; CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.

At the time of our inspection it was confirmed 19 people using the service received ‘personal care’.

A registered manager was in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

The registered manager and the provider were fully aware of their legal responsibilities and committed to providing excellent leadership and support to staff. The vision and values of the service in providing high quality person centred care was central to the ethos of the service. People received care and support from a staff team that were inspired and had a positive sense of direction and strong leadership to give people an enhanced quality of life. There was a strong focus on inclusion, positive risk taking, promoting independence and empowerment. The well-being of people was at the heart of everything the service did.

The quality assurance systems were effectively used to monitor and assess the quality of the service to drive continuous improvement. The provider worked in partnership with other healthcare professionals and external agencies to continuously provide a service that was based on best practice.

Staff went the ‘extra mile’ to ensure people lived as fulfilled and enriched lives as possible. The staff respected people’s individuality and enabled people to express their wishes and make choices for themselves. Positive therapeutic relationships had been developed and staff were proud of the support they provided to people and the positive outcomes this achieved for people using the service.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service fully supported this practice. People were protected from the risk of harm. Staff had been trained in safeguarding people and understood how to report any concerns of abuse. Risks to people’s safety were fully assessed to ensure they were effectively managed whilst also promoting independence.

People were supported with their medicines in a safe way. People’s nutritional needs were met and they were supported with their health care needs when required. The service worked with other organisations to ensure that people received continuous coordinated care and support.

People were protected by safe recruitment procedures to ensure staff were suitable to work in care services. People were included in the staff recruitment and selection process and their care and support was delivered by hand-picked care workers. Staff received in-depth training for their role and received ongoing support and supervision to work effectively.

The registered manager and staff understood the importance of working in accordance with the principles of the Mental Capacity Act, 2005 (MCA) and people's consent was gained before staff provided people with their care and support needs.

People were fully involved in all aspects of their care and bespoke complex care packages were designed around individual needs, goals and aspirations. The support plans were very detailed and gave information about people’s wishes, their preferences, daily routines and diverse needs. Staff worked very closely with people and relatives staff to ensure people were supported to experience a high quality of life.

People and their relatives were extremely pleased with the staff who provided their care and support and positive trusting relationships had developed. People were treated with kindness, compassion, dignity and respect, and their rights to privacy and freedom of choice were fully upheld.

People, relatives and staff were encouraged to provide feedback about the service and this was used to drive continuous improvement. People and relatives all spoke positively about the staff team and how the service was managed. Processes were in place to ensure people could raise complaints or concerns directly with the provider and if needed to statutory bodies outside of the agency.