Updated 28 December 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
This inspection was carried out by 1 inspector, a regulatory coordinator and the support of a Cantonese interpreter. A Cantonese interpreter was required because the majority of people using the service could not communicate as effectively in English as it was not their first language.
Service and service type
Chinse Homecare Specialists is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.
Registered Manager
This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.
At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.
Notice of inspection
We gave the provider 48 hours’ notice because as they are a small service we needed to ensure they would be available to assist us with the inspection.
Inspection activity started on 29 November and ended on 12 December 2023. We visited the office location on 29 November 2023 to see the registered manager and nominated individual and to review a range of records related to the service.
We reviewed a range of further documents related to people’s care and the management of the service that was sent to us by the management team between 30 November and 7 December 2023. We made calls to people who used the service, their relatives and care staff between 4 and 12 December 2023.
What we did before the inspection
We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. This included any significant incidents that occurred at the service. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR), which was sent in on 11 September 2023. 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 reviewed information from a direct monitoring activity (DMA) that was carried out with the provider on 22 June 2023 to get an update on the service. This information helps support our inspections. We also contacted the local authority commissioning team. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection
We reviewed a range of records related to 6 people’s care and support. This included people’s care plans, risk assessments and medicines information. We reviewed 4 staff files in relation to recruitment, training and supervision. We reviewed records related to the management of the service, which included quality assurance records, minutes of staff meetings and a range of policies and procedures.
We spoke with 2 members of the management team. This was the registered manager and the nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.
We also spoke with 5 care workers, both over the telephone and via email.
We contacted 7 people and managed to speak with 2 people and 3 relatives.
We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found after the inspection. We looked at further records related to people’s care, a training matrix and further quality assurance records.
We provided formal feedback to the management team on 7 December 2023.