Grace Care UK

Updated 25 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:

One inspector conducted the inspection.

Service and service type:

Grace Care UK is a is a home care agency that supports people who live in their own homes. Not everyone using the service receives the regulated activity of personal care. 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.

The service had a manager who was registered with the CQC. A registered manager is a person who, with the provider, is legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.

Notice of inspection:

This inspection was announced two days in advance. This is because we wanted to make sure that the registered manager was available to assist us with the inspection.

What we did when preparing for and carrying out this inspection:

Before the inspection, we asked the provider to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider 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 made judgements in this report.

We reviewed information we held about the service such as notifications. These are events which happened in the service that the provider is required to tell us about. We sought feedback from the local authority who monitor the care and support people received and Healthwatch Leicester, the local consumer champion for people using adult social care services. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection, we spoke with a person provided with personal care and two relatives of people using the service. We also spoke with the registered manager and two care staff.

We reviewed a range of records. This included accident and incident records, two people's care records and medicine records. We also looked at two staff recruitment files.

We asked the registered manager to email further information to us, so that we could judge whether a quality service was provided to people. We reviewed this information as part of the inspection process.

Updated 25 June 2019

About the service:

The service is a domiciliary care service, situated in Leicester. It provides personal care and treatment of disease, disorder and injury to older people, people with physical disabilities, younger adults and children from the ages of 13 to 18, living in their own homes. At the time of the inspection visit, three people were provided with personal care by the service.

People’s experience of using this service

Risk assessments were in place to protect people from risks to their health and welfare.

Staff recruitment checks were carried out to protect people from receiving personal care from unsuitable staff.

A person and relatives said that safe personal care was provided.

Staff had been trained in safeguarding (protecting people from abuse). Staff members understood their responsibilities to safeguard people and to contact relevant agencies if needed.

The registered manager was aware that certain incidents, if they occurred, needed to be reported to us, as legally required.

Staff had largely received training to ensure they had skills and knowledge to meet people's needs. Further specialist training had not yet been provided on people’s health conditions.

Staff members understood their responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) to allow, as much as possible, people to have effective choices about how they lived their lives. Staff were aware to ask people's consent when they provided personal care. Capacity assessments were in place to determine how best to support people who did not have capacity to decide aspects of their lifestyles.

A person and relatives told us that staff were very friendly, caring and kind. They said they had been involved in making decisions about how and what personal care was needed to meet personal care needs.

Care plans contained personalised information about people’s preferences and likes and dislikes, though there was little information about people’s history, which would help staff to ensure that people’s needs were fully met.

Staffing levels were sufficient to always provide people with the care they needed though care calls were not always timely.

People and relatives, except one relative, were confident that any concerns they had would be properly followed up. They were satisfied with how the service was run. Staff members said they had been supported in their work by the registered manager.

Audits to measure that a quality service had been provided to people were carried out though not all the important issues had been audited.

Staff worked in partnership with relatives so that people got the support they required from other agencies.

The voice of people, relatives and staff were not comprehensively involved in the running of the service to help drive improvements.

Rating at last inspection:

The service was rated Good at the last inspection. Our last report was published for the inspection of August 2016.

Why we inspected.

This inspection was part of our scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received.

Follow up.

We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people received safe, high quality care. Further inspections will be planned for future dates.

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