Background to this inspection
Updated
11 April 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:
The inspection was carried out by one adult social care inspector and an expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. Their area of expertise is older people and dementia care.
Service and service type:
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own homes. There was no registered manager at the time of the inspection.
Notice of inspection:
We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because we needed to be sure that someone would be available at the office. We also needed to make arrangements to make contact with people to seek their feedback.
Inspection site visit activity started on 13 March 2019 and ended on 15 March 2019. We visited the office location on the 13 and 15 March to see the manager and staff; and to review care records and policies and procedures.
What we did:
Before the inspection, we reviewed the information we held about the service. This included notifications sent to us by the provider and other information we held on our database about the service. Statutory notifications include information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We used information the provider sent us in their Provider Information Return (PIR). This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We used this information to plan the inspection.
We spoke with five people who used the service and five relatives. We also spoke with staff including, the head of operations, one care co-ordinator and three care support workers.
We reviewed three people's care records, three staff personnel files, audits and other records about the management of the service.
Updated
11 April 2019
About the service:
Crossroads Cheshire East is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to adults and children living in their own houses and flats in the community. At the time of the inspection it was providing personal care to 41 people.
Not everyone using Crossroads Cheshire East receives a regulated activity; 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.
People’s experience of using this service:
Overall people were positive about the service. People felt safe and well supported. They told us they received reliable care from familiar staff who understood their needs. Staff treated people with dignity and respect and took account of their individual needs when providing care and support.
People were supported by well trained staff who had their competency checked by the management team on a regular basis. Staff supervision sessions had taken place; however, the provider had identified some of these needed to be carried out more frequently.
The service was responsive to people’s changing needs and staff promoted choices. Care and support plans were in place and included details about people’s likes and preferences. However, some records needed to include further details. The provider was aware and addressing this.
People were involved in decisions about their care and were able to provide feedback. Reviews were held with people and their relatives. The provider had identified that some reviews had not been held as often as they should and was addressing this.
People said that communication with the office had deteriorated due to the number of staff changes. However, everyone felt able to raise any concerns should they need to and had appropriate information about the complaints procedure.
The provider had systems in place to monitor the service and the quality of the care. They were restructuring the management team and were advertising for some new staff. Monitoring of the service had identified some areas where they could improve, such as records and systems and action was being taken to address these areas.
Rating at last inspection: Good (Published 20 July 2016)
Why we inspected: This was a scheduled inspection based on the previous rating.
Follow up: We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our inspection programme. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk