Aamevol Home Care Ltd

On this page

• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

Effective – this means we looked for evidence that people’s care, treatment and support achieved good outcomes and promoted a good quality of life, based on best available evidence.

At our last inspection we rated this key question good. At this inspection the rating has changed to requires improvement. This meant people’s outcomes were not consistently good, and the provider did not always work with people to deliver their care and treatment.

People did not always have effective support using the service. Their needs were not always assessed effectively and there was little evidence staff training was being checked to help make sure staff were competent to support people with their support needs. Daily records were not being completed consistently and were not being reviewed to make sure people were being supported to live healthy lives and achieve their health-related outcomes. People were being supported in line with the Mental Capacity Act (MCA).

This service scored 50 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

Some people did not have records in place to show how their support needs had been assessed when they started using the service. The provider did not have an admissions policy in place to support new admissions to the service. People’s care plans and risk assessments were not being reviewed or updated to see if their needs may have changed on a regular basis. Staff were not completing daily records consistently and these daily records were not being audited or reviewed to see if any changes were needed to people’s support needs that may need to be reassessed.

People and their relatives were positive about their experiences when they started using the service. One relative said, ‘‘I know the staff met [family member] to see how to support them before they started supporting them.’’

People were not always being supported in line with best practice and evidence-based care. People’s care plans in relation to specific health conditions were not detailed. They did not give guidance to staff in line with best practice about how to support people with these health conditions. Staff were not able to explain how to support people with their specific health conditions or if they were living with dementia. Staff were not always recording care notes to evidence the care and treatment people received.

People told us staff supported them well. One relative said, ‘‘[Staff] always try their best and seem to know how to help [family member] when they feel upset.’’

The registered manager and management team were unsure and unable to tell us clearly how many staff they employed and where in the service the staff were deployed. They were unable to show us how they had oversight of where staff were working across their various office locations. Staff approached us to speak with us and we were not made aware they worked for the organisation during our inspection. Staff were not receiving supervisions in line with the providers policy. The management team told us staff had regular staff meetings. However, there were no records of these meetings to show what was being discussed. This limited the opportunities for staff to work well together. The service did not always evidence that they worked well across teams and services to support people with their health needs. Although staff, gave us examples of external professionals they had worked with to meet people’s health needs, these were not always reflected in people’s care plans.

Staff told us they enjoyed working together to support people who needed support from more than 1 staff member. They also told us how they would ring other services such as a GP or paramedics if they felt people needed support from these services. People and their relatives told us staff worked well together. One relative told us, ‘‘The staff have a good amount of banter between them and always make [family member] feel at ease when they are helping them.’’

There was limited evidence to show how people were being supported to live healthy lives. People’s care plans and risk assessments contained limited detail about their health conditions or how to support them to be healthy in relation to these. For example, one person was overweight however there was no detail in their care plan about how staff could support them with this. Care records did not contain information about how people were feeling or what staff did to support good health, such as promoting regular exercise. Staff were unsure and could not explain to us what they did to support people to stay healthy.

People and their relatives did not raise concerns about how staff supported them in relation to their health. One relative said, ‘‘[Staff] are getting to know [family member] and how to help them stay healthy.’’

The service did not effectively monitor people’s care and treatment to continuously improve it. Outcomes documented in people’s care plans were not always detailed in how they would be achieved for example, ‘staying comfortable at home whilst being supported.’ However, staff told us how they would support people to speak about their health-related outcomes. For example, they would make sure people’s preferred food was available for them to eat at their request. One relative said, ‘‘[Staff] know about [family members] health and know what to look for is they need more support.’’

People using the service all had capacity to be fully involved in their care and support and any decisions made about this. The management team told us they had processes in place if people did not have capacity and needed more support. This included completing capacity assessments and making decisions in people’s best interests. Staff understood the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and how to support people in line with this. One relative told us, ‘‘Staff are polite and courteous and always make sure they ask [family member] for permission before they support them.’’