A HOMECARE service has celebrated after it was rated ‘good’ by the CQC, two years after an ‘inadequate’ report.

Horizon Homecare, based in New Orchard, Poole, received the rating from the inspectorate following an assessment in March.

Hayley Hackett, registered manager at the domiciliary care service, said the service is now running much smoother.

“I’m not going to lie; it has been so crazy, but I am so proud of everything that everyone has achieved,” she said.

“We want to just keep improving and keep moving standards up.”

The inspector found that learning from events and ‘continual improvement’ were ‘instrumental’ to the service.

“Leadership was visible and staff had committed to a common goal, to provide high quality care to people using the service,” it said.

“Governance systems were operating effectively and underpinned by robust policies and procedures.”

The business provides personal care to 230 people across the conurbation, with the report finding that people were ‘safe and confident in their support’.

It also found that those using the service and their families were complimentary about it, and that they felt involved in the service, enabling them to remain safe and build their confidence at home.

Care was delivered safely and staff knew how to keep people safe and how to address any concerns.

The report said: “Everyone understood their role and were clear in their part of making the service work well.

“Improvements had been sustained and built upon this had become the culture of the service.”

Hayley started working at the service shortly after the ‘inadequate’ report, to help turn it around, and described the process of moving towards a ‘good’ rating.

This includes working with BCP Council, who carried out a monitoring visit within six months of the report, which Hayley said the authority was ‘really happy’ with, before the CQC visited again.

“When we got the requires improvement, they said we can’t give you a good at this stage but we can look to moving you forward, in the future we will come back,” she said.

“At the time I was pretty devastated, but it is true, we weren’t completely ready, but we were a lot safer.

“But my brain goes it is just to ensure that we are giving a safe service out, looking after the staff, we’ve rejigged a lot of the processes with the staff, we’ve relooked at our processes with the clients.”