Age UK - Northumberland

Updated 4 September 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

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

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

We gave the service 48 hours' notice of the inspection. This was because we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 11 July and ended on 16 August. We visited the office location on 11 July and 2 August and visited people in their own homes on 8 August. We completed telephone calls to people and their relatives on 16 August.

What we did before the inspection

We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections.

We spoke with the local authority commissioning and safeguarding team. We reviewed all the information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 10 people and seven relatives. We spoke with the registered manager, quality lead, quality coordinator, nurse lead, three case managers, a senior case manager and 17 care staff.

We spoke with a specialist nurse, a broker [a broker is responsible for setting up packages of care] and received feedback from a care training provider. We spoke with the interim head of care who was also the nominated individual for the service. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider.

We looked at five staff recruitment files, 12 care plans and a variety of records relating to the quality and safety of the service.

After the inspection

We continued to seek clarification from the provider to validate evidence found.

Updated 4 September 2019

About the service

Age UK is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care to people in their own homes. At the time of inspection, the service was supporting 651 people. Not everyone who used the service received personal care. 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.

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

People and their relatives told us they were happy with the service, with the majority saying they could not think of anything the service could improve. Where a small number of people had concerns about changes to regular staff they had raised this with the provider who did their best to accommodate people’s preferences.

At our last inspection we found gaps in records relating to recruitment, the Mental Capacity Act (MCA), training and complaints. At this inspection we found significant improvements had been made in record keeping in all these areas.

There were safe systems in place for the administration of medicines, and staff received training specific to people’s health related needs before providing care to them.

Individual risks to people were assessed and staff were provided with guidance about how to keep people safe. Staff received regular training and supervision and had a named supervisor to support them.

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

We received multiple positive comments about the friendliness, kindness and professionalism of staff.

A new registered manager had been appointed since the last inspection who had a clear vision for the service. New quality systems had been introduced which provided clear performance related information.

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

Rating at last inspection and update: The last rating for this service was rated requires improvement (published 13 July 2018) and there was one breach of regulation. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of regulations.

The overall rating for the service has changed from requires improvement to good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

Why we inspected

This was a planned inspection based on the previous rating.