Updated 19 November 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. 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 one inspector.
Service and service type
Lifted is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes.
The service did not have a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. A registered manager is a person who is legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided. At the time of the inspection the new manager, who had started in September 2019, was in the process of completing their registered manager application.
Notice of inspection
We gave the provider three days’ notice because we needed to ensure somebody would be available to assist us with the inspection.
Inspection activity started on 21 October and ended on 1 November 2019. We visited the office location on 23 and 24 October 2019 to see the senior management team, manager, office staff and to review care records and policies and procedures. We made calls to people and their relatives between 21 October and 1 November 2019.
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. 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 spoke with two people who used the service and two relatives for their experiences of the service they received. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection
We reviewed a range of records. This included four people’s care records and five staff files in relation to recruitment, training and supervision. We also reviewed records related to the management of the service, which included quality assurance audits, complaints, incidents and accidents and minutes of team meetings. We also had a demonstration of how the provider’s app worked, including how care workers documented shifts, how alerts were received and managed and how people and their relatives could communicate with the office through the app.
We spoke with seven members of staff. This included the manager, the chief executive officer 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 the operations analyst, the customer success analyst and two care workers.
After the inspection
We made further calls to people and spoke with one more person who used the service and a further three relatives. We also spoke with a further four care workers.