Updated 4 March 2023
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 team consisted of an inspector and an Expert By Experience, who carried out telephone interviews to people and their relatives to gather their feedback of the service. An Expert by Experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service.
Service and service type
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.
This service is required to have a registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. At the time of this inspection there was a registered manager in post. The registered manager was also the provider’s nominated individual, this meant they were legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
Notice of inspection
This inspection was announced. We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service where the registered manager also provided care calls and we needed to be sure that they would be available to support the inspection.
Inspection activity started on 31 January 2023 when we visited the office. Telephone calls were made offsite to relatives and staff on 8 February 2023. Inspection activity ended when we had a face to face meeting via video call with the registered manager on 14 February 2023 to give feedback.
What we did before the inspection
We reviewed our systems and information we held about 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 took this into account when we inspected the service and made judgements in this report. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection
We spoke with 8 people who used the service and 5 relatives. We received electronic feedback from 1 person and 1 relative.
We spoke with the registered manager who was also the provider’s nominated individual, the care coordinator and 2 members of staff. We received electronic feedback from 7 members of staff and the local authority commissioning team.
We reviewed a range of care records for three people including their risk assessments and medication records. We looked at 2 staff recruitment records. We also viewed some of the provider’s policies and procedures, training data, quality assurance records, management monitoring and oversight records.