Goldsmith Personnel Limited (Oxfordshire)

Updated 7 October 2020

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 Care Act 2014.

Inspection team

The inspection was carried out by two inspectors 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.

Service and service type

Domiciliary care

This service is a domiciliary care agency. It provides personal care to people living in their own houses and flats.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service 48 hours’ notice of the inspection. This was because it is a small service and we needed to be sure that the provider or registered manager would be in the office to support the inspection.

Inspection activity started on 19 August 2020 and ended on 17 September 2020. We visited the office location on 17 September 2020.

What we did before the inspection

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. The expert by experience spoke with five people who use the service and five relatives. We emailed eight care staff and received a response from four and spoke on the telephone with three to gain their views on the service.

We received feedback from the local authority and three professionals who work with the service. The local authority provided us with their views on the service. However, on this occasion we did not receive a response from the professionals.

We also requested a sample of documents relating to the management of the service. This included three people’s care records and associated medication records.

We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return. This is information providers are required to send us with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make. This information helps support our inspections. We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We met with the registered manager. We looked at two staff files in relation to recruitment, spot checks and staff supervision. We also viewed incident records and safeguarding records.

Updated 7 October 2020

About the service

Goldsmith Personnel Limited (Oxfordshire) offers a domiciliary service for people living in their homes in the Chipping Norton and surrounding areas. 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. On the day of our inspection 42 people were receiving a personal care service.

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

Since the last inspection, improvements had been made with the quality assurance processes. Systems were now in place to check on different aspects of the service. This helped the provider and registered manager monitor the service more effectively.

We received positive feedback on the service from people using the service, their relatives and from staff. Comments from people using the service included, “It’s absolutely amazing. I’m blown away with them [staff]. It’s so personal” and “They [staff] are extremely capable. They take an interest in our daily lives so there is always something to talk about.” Relatives also commented favourably about the staff team and registered manager (who had taken on this position since the last inspection). Their feedback included, “They [staff] go out of their way to make her [person using the service] comfortable. If she’s not so well, they are good at cheering her up and she feels good with them supporting her.”

Safeguarding notifications to the relevant bodies had been made where required and appropriate action taken. Medicines were administered safely in line with prescribed needs.

There were effective infection prevention and control systems in place to ensure the risk of infection was managed. People and relatives were happy with how staff had visited them, following infection control procedures, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

There was an open culture and staff were complimentary about the registered manager and confirmed there was good communication and they felt supported. The registered manager had been in this role since earlier in 2020 and was keen to make continuous improvements, share best practice and ensure staff were well trained in their role.

For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk

Rating at last inspection and update: The last rating for this service was Requires Improvement (published 6 January 2020) where there was one breach of regulation 17. The provider completed an action plan after the last inspection to show what they would do and by when to improve. At this inspection we found improvements had been made and the provider was no longer in breach of the regulations.

Why we inspected

We undertook this focused inspection to check they had followed their action plan and to confirm they now met legal requirements. This report only covers our findings in relation to the Key Questions: Safe and Well-Led, as these had been rated Requires Improvement.

The ratings from the previous comprehensive inspection for those key questions not looked at on this occasion were used in calculating the overall rating at this inspection. The overall rating for the service has changed from Requires Improvement to Good. This is based on the findings at this inspection.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Goldsmith Personnel Limited (Oxfordshire) on our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

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.