Nightingales Community Care Limited

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.

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats in the community It provides a service to older adults. At the time of our inspection eight people were using the service.

There was a registered manager in place. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The registered manager was also one of the owners and registered providers of the service.

People and their relatives told us staff at the service kept them safe. Risks to people were assessed in a number of areas and plans drawn up to reduce the chances of them occurring. The registered manager monitored accidents and incidents to see if improvements could be made to help keep people safe. Plans were in place to support people in emergency situations. Policies and procedures were in place to safeguard people from abuse. People’s medicines were managed safely. The provider’s policies and procedures supported effective infection control. The provider and registered manager ensured staffing levels were sufficient to provide safe support. The provider’s recruitment policies and procedures reduced the risk of unsuitable staff being employed.

Staff were supported through regular training, supervision and appraisals. The service sought out and worked to current best practice. People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible. The policies and systems in the service supported this. People and their relatives said they received the support they wanted and needed with managing food and nutrition. People were supported to access healthcare professionals to monitor and improve their health.

People and their relatives spoke very positively about the support delivered by staff at the service, describing it as caring and kind. People were treated with dignity and respect and confidentiality was protected. Staff understood the importance of promoting people’s independence. People were supported to access advocacy services should they be needed.

People received personalised support that was tailored to their needs and preferences. People’s communication needs were assessed before they started using the service to ensure all necessary arrangements were in place to support them. The service provided end of life care where needed.

The provider had policies and procedures in place to investigate and respond to complaints.

People and their relatives described the service as well-led and spoke positively about the registered manager and provider. Staff spoke positively about the culture and values of the service, and of the leadership provided by the registered manager and provider. The registered manager and provider carried out a number of quality assurance checks to monitor and improve standards at the service. Feedback was sought from people and their relatives. The registered managed had developed links with other agencies and groups that benefited people using the service. The registered manager had informed CQC of significant events in a timely way by submitting the required notifications. This meant we could check that appropriate action had been taken.