Kumari Care

Updated 29 March 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

This inspection was carried out by 1 inspector and 2 Experts 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.

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 not a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

This inspection was announced. 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 8 March 2023 and ended on 20 March 2023. We visited the location’s office on 10 March 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. 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 10 people and 13 relatives about their experiences of care received. We spoke with 4 members of staff, the quality and compliance manager and the nominated individual. The nominated individual is responsible for supervising the management of the service on behalf of the provider. We contacted 7 healthcare professionals for their feedback about the service and heard back from 5 by email.

We reviewed care and support records for 8 people including medicines records. We also reviewed incidents and accidents, safeguarding records, complaints, compliments, training information, staff newsletters, staff meeting minutes, quality monitoring records and 3 staff recruitment files.

Updated 29 March 2023

About the service

Kumari Care is a domiciliary care agency in Bath providing personal care to people living in their own homes. The service provides care to people over and under 65 years, people with a learning disability, physical disability, sensory impairment, mental health condition and people living with dementia. There were 62 people receiving personal care at the time of the inspection.

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

We expect health and social care providers to guarantee people with a learning disability and autistic people respect, equality, dignity, choices and independence and good access to local communities that most people take for granted. ‘Right support, right care, right culture’ is the guidance CQC follows to make assessments and judgements about services supporting people with a learning disability and autistic people and providers must have regard to it.

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

Right Support:

People’s needs were recorded in their care plans, so staff knew how to support them safely. Risks to people’s safety were assessed and plans put in place which were regularly reviewed. People’s medicines were managed safely, staff had guidance on what medicines support to provide and had been trained.

Right Care:

Recruiting staff had been a challenge for the provider. Some people and relatives told us this challenge had been noticed as their visits could be late. The provider was aware of this issue and taking steps to make improvements such as obtaining a sponsorship licence from the government. This would mean the provider could recruit from overseas.

People were supported by staff who understood person-centred values of privacy, dignity and promoting independence. Staff told us they visited the same people so had time to build relationships and get to know people well. We found guidance was recorded in people’s records on how to promote independence. It focused on what people could do for themselves and the areas where people might need more support.

Right Culture:

There was not a registered manager in post and the provider told us they were struggling to recruit into this position. The service was managed day to day by the owner of the service who was very experienced. There was a management structure in place which the staff were clear about. Any concern could be reported, and action taken in response. Staff worked in partnership with professionals who told us there was good lines of communication.

Quality monitoring systems were in place and improvements identified. The provider had invested in an electronic care planning system which gave them better oversight of people’s records. The next stage of the service improvement plan was to add audits to the electronic system. This would help the service be more paper free and give the provider oversight of the service in one place.

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 7 November 2019).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

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 remains good.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the 'all reports' link for Kumari Care on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Follow up

We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.