Allied Healthcare (Fraserburgh) Housing Support Service Business Centre South Harbour Road Fraserburgh AB43 9TN Telephone: 01346 510667 Type of inspection: Announced (short notice) Inspection completed on: 4 November 2016 Service provided by: Nestor Primecare Services Ltd trading as Allied Healthcare Service provider number: SP2013012053 Care service number: CS2013320930
About the service The service provides a housing support service to service users in their own homes within Aberdeenshire. The service operates from an office base in Fraserburgh. The service employs a range of staff with varying degrees of skills, experience and qualifications to support older people with a range of support needs and people with a learning or physical disability and mental health problems in their own homes. This service was registered with the Care Inspectorate on 1 April 2011. What people told us Fourteen Care Standard Questionnaires were returned by or on behalf of the service users of Allied Healthcare (Fraserburgh). All strongly agreed or agreed with the statement that they were happy with the standard of care and support that they received. Extracts from comments include: - My opinion with the service I get is excellent. - They are so caring and take the time to meet all of my needs so professionally. - I relay my concerns to the team leader who acknowledges these and arranges things to amend or provide additional support to address the areas of concerns. - Each and every member of staff at Allied has to be congratulated. Excellent communication if a change of carer has to be made at the last moment. - The service user couldn't be happier and that's the important outcome. - The service you provide is crucial in supporting families keep their elderly loved ones at home - working families could not cope without the support of the carers. - Allied provide a good service and regularly update our care plan. They hold regular reviews and spot checks. We have a good relationship with them and always found them helpful. - Happy with the service. Too many carers - but plan to reduce to 3-4. Detailed care plan. Coordinator reviewed plan to meet needs better. Building good relationships. Six service users and three family members met with the inspector. Their responses were similar to the comments above. All reported good relationships with the service, especially with the carers and coordinators. Self assessment The Care Inspectorate received a fully completed self assessment document from the provider. We were satisfied with the way the provider completed this, and with the relevant information included for each heading that we grade services under. The provider identified what it thought the service did well, some areas for development and any changes planned. From this inspection we graded this service as: Quality of care and support Quality of staffing Quality of management and leadership 5 - Very Good 5 - Very Good not assessed page 2 of 5
What the service does well Service users remained in their own homes with appropriate personal care and support being provided to enable this. Service users spoken with reported that they felt safe in their homes and that staff members respected their dignity and privacy. Support plans included information about how the care staff accessed the homes including security issues. Support plans had been improved with better information of the service user's abilities and the use of targeted risk assessments rather than using standardised risk assessments. Good examples included information of how carers accessed the home and about how carers communicated with the service user. This ensured that the service user was listened to and was involved in making choices about their care. A regular review of the support being provided was carried out. Field work supervisors visited at least twice annually to do a quality monitoring visit which included a discussion about the support being provided. Care staff advised managers if the service user required additional support and this was checked and implemented as necessary and agreed by the care manager. A record of the visits was included as part of the service's compliance system. From comments as part of the care standards questionnaires issued to the service users and families and from meeting service users and families, it was reported that there was very good communication with the service and that they received support from a consistent staff team. The service followed safe recruitment procedures. The recruitment process was organised centrally with all information being available to the manager. All new staff received an appropriate induction and a minimum of 15 hours shadowing experienced staff although this was extended to ensure that new staff members were competent and confident to carry out lone working. A core training element was provided before staff members were able to work directly with service users. Additional training was provided to meet the needs of service users. This could be e-learning or classroom based. The company had their own registered nurse who provided some of the training with other training provided by external agencies. Dementia training was encouraged with care staff being aware of the Scottish Social Services Council's dementia training courses. We discussed the Supporting Derek resource and other learning disability resources for people with a learning disability. What the service could do better Although the support plans had been updated and provided an improved level of detail as to the support to be provided, it was noted that in a few instances, mainly in some of the older support plans, that the terms full support and prompt were being used. It was discussed and it was advised that these terms should be avoided with more detail of the actual support to be given. We did identify a break in the process of reviewing and implementing changes following an accident/incident report. A solution was discussed and this had been implemented prior to feedback being given. It was noted that in one instance only one reference had been followed up. As the recruitment process was led by the central recruitment team, the manager had previously notified them of this and they now requested an additional reference if an original was not received. page 3 of 5
Requirements Number of requirements: 0 Recommendations Number of recommendations: 0 Complaints There have been no complaints upheld since the last inspection. Details of any older upheld complaints are published at www.careinspectorate.com. Inspection and grading history Date Type Gradings 25 Feb 2015 Announced (short notice) Care and support 5 - Very good Environment Not assessed Staffing 5 - Very good Management and leadership 4 - Good page 4 of 5
To find out more This inspection report is published by the Care Inspectorate. You can download this report and others from our website. Care services in Scotland cannot operate unless they are registered with the Care Inspectorate. We inspect, award grades and help services to improve. We also investigate complaints about care services and can take action when things aren't good enough. Please get in touch with us if you would like more information or have any concerns about a care service. You can also read more about our work online at www.careinspectorate.com Contact us Care Inspectorate Compass House 11 Riverside Drive Dundee DD1 4NY enquiries@careinspectorate.com 0345 600 9527 Find us on Facebook Twitter: @careinspect Other languages and formats This report is available in other languages and formats on request. Tha am foillseachadh seo ri fhaighinn ann an cruthannan is cànain eile ma nithear iarrtas. page 5 of 5