Nightingales Community Care Limited

Updated 7 October 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 1 inspector and 1 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 homes.

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. A new manager had been recruited and they were going through the process to become registered.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 24 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was to request information about the service, people and relatives and to make sure the provider or manager would be available to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 23 May 2023 and ended on 29 June 2023. We spoke with people and relatives on 24 May 2023, reviewed evidence sent to us and visited the office on 29 June 2023.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed the information we held about 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 sought feedback from the local authority contracts monitoring and safeguarding adults' teams and reviewed the information they provided. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with 3 people and 8 relatives about their experience of the care provided. We spoke with the manager, the business support manager and the care co-ordinator. We also received feedback from 6 care staff members

We reviewed a range of records including 3 people’s care records and medicines records. We looked at recruitment records for 2 members of staff. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were also reviewed.

Updated 7 October 2023

About the service

Nightingales Community Care Ltd is a domiciliary care agency providing personal care and support to people living in their own homes. 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. At the time of inspection 11 people were receiving personal care.

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

People and relatives were happy with the service and the care people received. They were complimentary about staff calling them “efficient” “caring” and “friendly.” Comments included, “I couldn’t manage without them (staff). They are gentle, caring and compassionate.”

There were systems in place to keep people safe. Staff safeguarded people from abuse. Risks to people’s health, safety and well-being were managed. There were enough staff to meet people’s needs and safe recruitment processes were followed. Medicines were safely administered and managed. The provider had effective systems to review incidents, check appropriate action had been taken and identify learning. The provider and staff protected people from the risk or spread of infection.

The service was well managed. The provider, manager and staff promoted a positive culture in the service. People and relatives were complimentary about staff and the care people received. The provider had an effective quality assurance process in place which included regular audits and spot checks. People, relatives and staff were regularly consulted about the quality of the service through regular communication, meetings and reviews.

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 23 December 2017).

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service. As a result, we decided to undertake a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe 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 remained good based on the findings of this inspection. We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm. Please see the Safe and Well-led sections of this full report.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Nightingales Community Care Ltd 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.