Updated 18 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 two inspectors, an assistant 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. They had experience of caring for elderly people.
Service and service type:
Crossroads Care Kent is a domiciliary care agency which provides care and support for people in their own homes. Care is provided for a range of people including older people, those with dementia and people at the end of their lives. The service operates in areas of West Kent. Not everyone using Crossroads Care Kent received 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.
The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission. This means that they and the provider are legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
Notice of inspection:
We gave the service four days’ notice of the inspection visit because the registered manager and other staff we wanted to speak with may be out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in.
Inspection site visit activity started on 5 March 2019 and finished on 7 March 2019. We visited the office location on 6 March 2019 to see the registered manager and office staff; and to review care records, staff records and policies and procedures. We asked the registered manager if they could seek the permission of people using the service to visit them in their home to gain their feedback, and we visited those people on 5 March 2019. We also spoke with people and their relatives over the telephone on 5 and 7 March 2019. We spoke with care staff on 7 March 2019.
What we did:
We reviewed information we had received about the service. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as allegations of abuse. Providers are required to send us key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they intend to make. This information helps support our inspections. We assessed the 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 all this information to plan our inspection.
During our inspection we looked at the following:
¿ Notifications we received from the service
¿ Three people’s care records
¿ Three staff recruitment files, staff supervision and training records
¿ Audits and quality assurance reports
¿ Medicine records
We visited two people in their homes and spoke to them and their relatives about the support they received. We spoke with 2 people and 10 relatives on the telephone. We also spoke with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the registered manager, a care manager and 5 care staff.