AA-I-Care - 35 Southwell

Updated 1 September 2023

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 Health and Social Care Act 2008.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by 3 inspectors.

Service and service type

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

Notice of inspection

We gave the service notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 25 July 2023 and ended on 10 August 2023. We visited the location’s office on 2 August 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority quality improvement teams and a social care professional working with the provider. We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. We used this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We visited 3 people who used the service and their live in carers. We spoke on the telephone with a further 9 members of care staff. We also spoke with the owner/provider and 2 members of staff who worked out of the office.

We reviewed a range of records. This included aspects of 7 people's care and medication records. We looked at 3 staff files in relation to their recruitment.

Updated 1 September 2023

About the service

AA-I-Care - 35 Southwell is a domiciliary care agency service providing personal care to people in their own homes. At the time of our inspection, they were providing a live-in care service with personal care to 9 people who lived in Dorset.

CQC only inspects where people receive personal care. This is help with tasks related to personal hygiene. Where they do, we also consider any wider social care provided.

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

People were at reduced risk of harm due to substantial improvements made in relation to risk management and the oversight of medicines administration. However, further work was needed to ensure the system of assessing staff competency to administer medicines and help people to move safely was embedded effectively.

People were supported by staff who had been recruited safely.

The owner/provider was responsive to all issues raised during our inspection. They were committed to the service.

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 requires improvement (supplementary report published 13 July 2023).

Why we inspected

We undertook this targeted inspection to check whether the Warning Notice we previously served in relation to Regulation 12 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 had been met.

The provider told us the requirements of Regulation 19 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 had also been met. We checked this during this inspection.

The overall rating for the service has not changed following this targeted inspection and remains requires improvement.

We use targeted inspections to follow up on Warning Notices or to check concerns. They do not look at an entire key question, only the part of the key question we are specifically concerned about.

Enforcement

We have identified a continued breach in relation to safe care and treatment.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will meet with the provider following this report being published to discuss how they will make changes to ensure they improve their rating to at least good. We will work with the local authority to monitor progress. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.