Updated 5 June 2019
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. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team:
The inspection was conducted by one inspector and an expert by experience. 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: Anchorage Care Group is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes in the community. The Care Quality Commission (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 consider any wider social care provided.
The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
Notice of inspection:
We gave the service 48 hours' notice of the inspection visit because the manager is sometimes out of the office providing care and supporting staff. We needed to be sure that they would be in.
Inspection site visit activity took place on 20 May 2019 and ended on 22 May 2019. It included telephone calls to people who used the service and care staff.
What we did:
Before our inspection, we looked at information we held about the service. The provider sent us a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We reviewed the information we held about the service, such as notifications we had received from the provider. A notification is information about important events which the service is required to send us by law. We sought feedback from the local authority contract monitoring team and safeguarding team prior to our visit. We used this information to plan the inspection.
During the inspection, we spoke with 11 people who used the service and five relatives. We spoke with the registered manager, care manager and care co-ordinator. We spoke with two care staff. We looked at a range of documents and records related to people's care and the management of the service. We viewed three people's care records, three staff recruitment files, induction and training files and a selection of records used to monitor the quality and safety of the service.