Pleasant Valley Care Limited

Updated 31 December 2022

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 two inspectors and an assistant inspector.

Service and service type

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

Registered Manager

This provider is required to have a registered manager to oversee the delivery of regulated activities at this location. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Registered managers and providers are legally responsible for how the service is run, for the quality and safety of the care provided and compliance with regulations.

At the time of our inspection there was a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 02 November 2022 and ended on 15 November 2022. We visited the location’s office on 02 November 2022.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed the information we had received about the service. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. 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 all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 2 people who used the service about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with 9 relatives about the care their loved ones received. We spoke with 11 staff, including the registered manager, care manager, HR staff, the duty manager and senior care staff. We reviewed a range of records. These included 4 people’s care records and multiple medication records. We looked at 3 staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were reviewed.

Updated 31 December 2022

About the service

Pleasant Valley Care is a domiciliary care agency providing the regulated activity of personal care to people living in their own homes. The service provides support to older people, people living with dementia and people with physical disabilities. At the time of our inspection there were 31 people using the service.

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

At the time of the inspection, the location did not care or support for anyone with a learning disability or an autistic person who was in receipt of the regulated activity of personal care. However, we assessed the care provision under Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture, as it is registered as a specialist service for this population group.

Right Care

Care plans lacked guidance for staff on how to support people with specific health needs. Some relatives felt staff did not know enough about their health care needs to support them appropriately. A staffing crisis had led to some missed care calls. Relatives and people receiving care told us calls had since not been missed but were still often late. The service was providing care call ‘windows’ or broader time as agreed by the funding local authority. However, they had not ensured people who had a need for specific calls times were accommodated.

Right Care

People receiving care and their relatives shared mixed views on the support they received to eat and drink well. Some felt not all carers were good at preparing meals, others were happy with the support they received. Care plans provided guidance for staff on what people could and could not do for themselves. People were supported by staff who received a detailed induction and regular training.

Right Culture

People and relatives had mixed views about the management team. Some were unhappy with the level of consultation and communication; they told us they did not feel listened to. Some were happy with this aspect of the service and described the care manager as ‘lovely’. The provider’s quality assurance systems had not identified some of the concerns we found at inspection. In some cases, learning from mistakes made had not been sustained over time. However, the provider had made numerous changes to try to improve service delivery.

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.

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

Rating at last inspection

The last rating for this service was good (Published 5 July 2019)

Why we inspected

We received concerns in relation to missed and late care calls. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe, effective and well-led only.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has changed from good to requires improvement based on the findings of this inspection.

We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvements. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report. The provider took action to address some of the concerns during the inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Pleasant Valley Care Limited on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

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.