Archived: Essential Nursing and Care Services

Updated 12 April 2016

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection took place on 9, 10 and 29 February 2016. Two inspectors undertook the inspection.

Before the inspection, we reviewed the information we held about the service; this included incidents they had notified us about. Additionally, we contacted the local authority safeguarding and commissioning teams to obtain their views.

We spoke with sixteen people and 4 relatives on the telephone. We also talked to nine members of staff either during meetings at the provider's office or on the telephone. We also spoke with the registered manager and office-based staff who were involved in supporting people who used the service. We looked at six people’s care and medicine records. We saw records about how the service was managed. This included five staff recruitment and monitoring records, staff schedules, audits and quality assurance records as well as a wide range of the provider’s policies, procedures and records that related to the management of the service.

Updated 12 April 2016

This inspection was announced and took place on 9, 10 and 29 February 2016. We told the provider one day before our visit that we would be coming to ensure that the people we needed to talk to would be available. At the last inspection in October 2013 the service was meeting the requirements of the regulations that were inspected at that time.

Essential Nursing and Care Services provides personal care and support to people who live in their own homes. At the time of our inspection they were providing 1400 hours of personal care per week to 210 people.

Essential Nursing and Care Services has a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People told us that their care and support needs were met and that staff were kind, caring and respectful. People also said they felt safe and had confidence in the staff that worked for the service.

Staff knew people well and understood their needs. Care plans were detailed and regularly reviewed. This meant that there was always information for staff to refer to when providing care for people.

The provider had implemented satisfactory systems to recruit and train care workers in a way that ensured that relevant checks and references were carried out and staff were competent to undertake the tasks required of them. The number of staff employed by Essential Nursing and Care Services and the skills they had were sufficient to meet the needs of the people they supported and keep them safe.

People were protected from harm and abuse wherever possible. There were systems in place to reduce and manage identified risks and to ensure medicines were managed and administered safely. Staff understood how to protect people from possible abuse and how to whistle-blow. People knew how to raise concerns and complaints and records showed that these were investigated and responded to.

There was a clear management structure in place. People and care staff said was the managers were approachable and supportive. There were systems in place to monitor the safety and quality of the service.