Jemcare

Updated 10 November 2021

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 Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by two inspectors and two Experts 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

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

The service was run by a single provider in day to day control of the service. It was therefore not required to have a registered manager. This means the provider is 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 24 hours’ notice of the inspection because of COVID-19. We had to arrange safe working procedures for our inspection.

Inspection activity started on 17 June and ended on 08 July 2021. One inspector visited the office location on 17 June and 24 June 2021.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the agency since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority who work with the agency. The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. 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 took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with eight people who use the service and nine of their relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with 22 staff, including the provider, assistant managers, administrators, senior care workers and care workers.

We reviewed a range of records. This included thirteen people’s care records and multiple medication records. We looked at two staff files in relation to their recruitment and supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures, training information and quality assurance documents were reviewed.

Updated 10 November 2021

About the service

Jemcare is a domiciliary care service providing personal care to people living with learning disabilities and/ or autism, mental health needs, physical disabilities and older people, including those living with dementia. The service was supporting 151 people at the time of our inspection.

Not everyone who used the service received personal care. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also consider any wider social care provided.

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee autistic people and people with a learning disability the choices, dignity, independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the statutory guidance which supports the CQC to make assessments and judgements about services providing support to people with a learning disability and/or autistic people.

The service was able to demonstrate how they were meeting the underpinning principles of ‘Right support, right care, right culture’. People’s care enabled them to have choice, control and independence, including where they chose to make unwise decisions. Care was person-centred and promoted dignity. The provider had an ethos of ensuring people using their service were included and empowered to live their lives as they chose.

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

People’s experience of using this service and what we found

The provider did not always have effective systems in place for monitoring the quality of people’s care and how the service was performing. Processes for submitting statutory notifications was not always consistent. We made a recommendation about the provider’s quality assurance processes.

The provider was focused on delivering good outcomes for people. The service had a positive culture, where people were happy. Staff shared in their commitment to promoting people’s quality of life and looked for opportunities to improve people’s care.

People received safe care, supported by a consistent team of care staff, who knew their care needs. The provider’s most recent survey from people that used the service showed they felt supported to be independent, positive about their care and safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Staff had a positive approach to risk management and used their knowledge of people to manage risks effectively. At times, this information was not reflected in people’s care records and behaviour support plans were not always in place. We made a recommendation about positive behaviour support plans. When accidents and incidents occurred, people were supported to be safe and lessons were learnt to improve practice.

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (published 28 November 2017).

Why we inspected

We identified potential concern in relation to risk at the service based on our records. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the other key questions. We therefore did not inspect them. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm from this concern. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Jemcare on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.