Background to this inspection
Updated
14 September 2021
The inspection
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection checked whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, 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 team consisted of one inspector and one 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.
Service and service type
This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats. It provides a service to older adults and younger adults with physical disabilities. 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.
The service had a manager registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The registered manager 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
The inspection was announced. The provider was given 24 hours’ notice because the location provides a domiciliary care service. We wanted to be sure that someone would be in to speak with us.
What we did
The provider was not asked to complete a provider information return prior to this inspection. This is information we require providers to send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.
We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. This included details about incidents the provider must notify us about, such as incidents and abuse. We used this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection
We reviewed a range of records. This included staff recruitment files, training records, accident and incident recording, and records relating to the scheduling of care calls and the management of the service. We also viewed a variety of policies and procedures and quality assurance processes developed and implemented by the provider. We reviewed 10 people’s care records. We spoke with nine members of staff, including the registered manager, a regional manager, the branch manager, administrators and care staff. During our inspection we spoke with 11 people over the telephone.
Updated
14 September 2021
About the service:
Agincare UK Brighton is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to approximately 170 people living in their own homes in the community. The service supports people living in Brighton and Hove. Agincare UK Brighton supports people with a range of health and social care needs, such as people with a physical disability, sensory impairment or people living with dementia.
People’s experience of using this service:
People we spoke with gave us mixed feedback in respect to the care they received. They felt they were treated with kindness by their care workers and they felt safe. However, they did not feel the care received routinely met their needs and preferences. People’s care visits were often late or early, and on occasion cut short.
We found issues with staffing levels and the deployment of staff. Many of the issues in respect to staffing levels had been caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, with staff being off sick or needing to self-isolate.
Staffing levels and sickness had impacted negatively on systems designed for scheduling care visits. This meant that staff were not always able to routinely attend to people’s care calls on time and stay for the amount of time they were scheduled for. People’s assessed needs or preferences were not always met and they did not receive continuity of care.
People’s feedback was mixed in respect to feeling the service was well managed. Some people were happy with the care they received. However, others did not feel routinely involved in their care, or feel their concerns and issues were acted upon.
The provider was aware of the issues we identified at this inspection and had started to implement changes to drive improvement.
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 10 January 2020).
Why we inspected
We received concerns in relation to the service providing regular care calls that met people’s needs and preferences. There was also an increased level of safeguarding concerns, incident of whistleblowing and complaints being made about the service. As a result, we undertook a focused inspection to review the key questions of safe and well-led only.
We reviewed the information we held about the service. No areas of concern were identified in the key questions of effective, caring or responsive. We therefore did not inspect these. Ratings from previous comprehensive inspections for those key questions were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection.
The overall rating for the service has changed from Good to Requires Improvement. This is based on the findings at this inspection.
We have found evidence that the provider needs to make improvement. Please see the safe and well-led sections of this full report.
Follow up
We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If we receive any concerning information we may inspect sooner.