Chorleywood Beaumont DCA

Updated 11 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:

This inspection was carried out by one inspector.

Service and service type:

Chorleywood Beaumont DCA is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own flats in the grounds of Chorleywood Beaumont Nursing Home.

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:

This was an announced inspection. We gave the provider 48 hours notice, because we wanted to make sure that people would be available to speak with us.

What we did:

Before the inspection we reviewed the Provider Information Return completed by the provider. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We looked at the previous inspection reports and any notifications received. A notification is information about important events, which the provider is required to tell us about by law.

We spoke with the registered manager, the deputy manager, one member of care staff and the divisional clinical lead nurse from the provider. We looked at three people’s care plans and the associated risk assessments and guidance. We looked at a range of other records including one staff recruitment file, the staff induction records, training and supervision schedules, staff rotas and quality assurance surveys.

During our inspection we spent time and spoke with three people using the service.

Updated 11 June 2019

About the service: Chorleywood Beaumont DCA is a domiciliary care agency which provides personal care to people living in their own flats in the grounds of Chorleywood Beaumont Nursing Home. At the time of the inspection six people were receiving support.

Not everyone using Chorleywood Beaumont DCA receives regulated activity; 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 take into account any wider social care provided

People’s experience of using this service:

Medicines were not managed safely. There was a lack of oversight of medicines management, and we could not be assured that people were receiving their medicines as prescribed.

There was a lack of oversight by both the provider and registered manager. The divisional clinical lead nurse from the provider was present at the inspection and told us that because the service was not providing nursing care, there were no audits of people’s medicines routinely completed by the provider.

People told us they sometimes had to wait to receive support. The registered manager had not looked into why people sometimes had to wait. We have made a recommendation regarding monitoring the time people had to wait to receive support.

The registered manager told us that accidents and incidents which occurred when staff were not present were not routinely recorded. There was a risk that trends and patterns may not be identified, and ways of reducing the chances of them happening again may not be implemented. We have made a recommendation regarding the monitoring of accidents and incidents.

Some of the issues regarding analysis of accidents and incidents and separating out records relating to the DCA and the nursing home also managed by the registered manager had been identified, although not yet addressed.

The registered manager did not routinely audit and check people’s daily notes, and a recent compliance audit by the provider had failed to identify the issues we found regarding people’s medicines.

People told us that they had built up strong relationships with staff and were treated with respect and dignity.

People were supported to eat meals and attend activities run by the nursing home, on the same site as their flats.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Staff told us they felt supported by the registered manager and received the regular supervision and appropriate training to complete their roles effectively.

People told us that they thought the registered manager was approachable and people knew how to complain if necessary.

Rating at last inspection: At the last inspection the service was rated Good. (Report published 7 July 2016)

Why we inspected: This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating of the service.

Follow up: Please see the ‘action we have told the provider to take’ section towards the end of the report. We will ask the provider to send us an action plan regarding how they are going to improve and continue to monitor the service.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

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