Pannonia Care

Updated 4 July 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 2 inspectors.

Service and service type

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

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 a registered manager in post.

Notice of inspection

We gave the service a short period of 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.

What we did before the inspection

The provider was not asked to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR) prior to this inspection. A PIR is information providers send us to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

We used information gathered as part of monitoring activity that took place on 18 April 2023 to help plan the inspection and inform our judgements.

We reviewed the information we held about the service. This included notifications of accidents, incidents and safeguarding concerns.

We used all of this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke with the registered manager. We reviewed the care plans for the 2 people who received care from the agency, as well as their medicines charts. We looked at training information, reviews of care plans, policies, procedures and feedback from people. We looked at paperwork in relation to the recruitment of 1 staff member.

Following our inspection, we spoke with 1 relative of a person who received care from the agency.

Updated 4 July 2023

About the service

Pannonia Care is a care agency providing the regulated activity of personal care to people 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 our inspection, the agency was providing care to 2 people.

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

Although care was provided to people by a sufficient number of staff, we found staff recruitment practices were not robust.

There was a continued lack of management oversight of the service and the registered provider had not ensured they maintained good records in relation to people’s medicines. Some people were receiving care from other care agencies in conjunction with Pannonia Care, but there were no arrangements in place for who would oversee this person’s care in terms of auditing records or the quality of care provided.

Systems and processes were not adequate enough to support a well led service and the registered provider had failed repeatedly to operate a service that was rated good.

People felt safe in staff hands and relative’s confirmed staff wore personal protective equipment when needed. Risks to people had been identified and guidance was in place for staff to help reduce these risks. In addition, there was a large amount of information in people’s care plans to help staff provide appropriate care.

The agency was flexible in their approach to people’s care, letting people decide how they wanted their care call to go. Staff showed a caring and respectful approach to people and good relationships had been developed.

Staff provided food and drink to people as they needed it and staff undertook training to help ensure they were competent in the way they care for people.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible and in their best interests; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

The registered manager kept up to date by reading information from the Care Quality Commission. They wished to expand the agency and start to recruit additional staff.

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 (report published 1 May 2019). The service remains requires improvement. This service has been rated requires improvement for the last 2 inspections.

At the last inspection, we identified a breach of Regulation 17 (Good governance) as there was poor management oversight. On this visit, little improvement had been made to this area and as such the registered provider was still in breach of this regulation.

At our last inspection we recommended the registered provider continue to improve records in relation to risks to people, as well as medicine records. We found information around risks had improved, however medicines records and quality assurance processes continued to require improvement.

You can see what action we have asked the provider to take at the end of this full report.

Since our last inspection, the agency had been dormant for a period of time. This meant they were not providing the regulated activity of personal care to anyone. The service came out of dormancy in November 2022 as they started to provide personal care to people.

Why we inspected

This inspection was prompted by a review of the information we held about this service.

Enforcement and Recommendations

At this inspection we found the provider remained in breach of Regulation 17 (Good governance). There was poor management oversight and we identified medicines records were not robust and good recruitment processes were not being followed.

Please see the action we have told the provider to take at the end of this report.

Follow up

We will meet with the provider following this report being published to discuss how they will make changes to ensure they improve their rating to at least good. We will continue to monitor information we receive about the service, which will help inform when we next inspect.