Caremark (Chiltern & Three Rivers)

Updated 17 January 2019

The inspection:

• We carried out our inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. Our inspection checked whether the provider was 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:

• Our inspection was completed by three 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. Our expert by experience had knowledge about personal care of adults within the community.

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 children, adults and people with dementia.

• The service is required to have a registered manager. 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. At the time of our inspection, a manager was registered with us.

Notice of inspection:

• Our inspection was announced.

• We gave the service 72 hours’ notice of the inspection visit because staff were often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be available for the site visit.

What we did:

• Our inspection was informed by evidence we already held about the service. We also checked for feedback we received from members of the public, local authorities and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). We checked records held by Companies House and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

• We asked the service to complete a Provider Information Return. This is information we require providers to send us at least once annually to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make.

• We telephoned and spoke with nine people who used the service and their relatives or family member.

• We spoke with the provider's nominated individual, two care coordinators, the field care supervisor and two care workers.

• We reviewed six people’s care records, three staff personnel files, audits and other records about the management of the service.

• We requested additional evidence to be sent to us after our inspection. This was received and the information was used as part of our inspection.

Updated 17 January 2019

About the service:

• The service’s office is based in Chesham. Care is provided in the surrounding areas including Amersham, Rickmansworth, Chorleywood and Croxley Green.

• The service is part of the Caremark brand; a large group of domiciliary care providers.

• The service provided personal care. People received care as part of a package where care workers visited a set number of times each day. A small number of people had full time ‘live-in’ carers who provided 24-hour care in their house.

• At the time of our inspection, 55 people used the service and there were 30 staff.

People’s experience of using this service:

• People were protected against avoidable harm, abuse, neglect and discrimination. The care they received was very safe.

• People’s risks were assessed and strategies put in place to mitigate the risks.

• People’s likes, preferences and dislikes were assessed and care packages met people’s desired expectations.

• People and relatives provided consistently positive feedback about the care, staff and management. They said the service was caring, timely, effective and well-led.

• People’s care was person-centred. The care was designed to ensure people’s independence was encouraged and maintained.

• People were equal contributors to their care plans and reviews. People, and where needed families, were actively engaged in formulation and changes to care packages.

• The service had a strong and robust management structure. The provider had implemented good systems to ensure they continuously measured the safety of people’s care and quality of the service.

• The service met the characteristics for a rating of “good” in all the key questions we inspected. Therefore, our overall rating for the service after this inspection was “good”.

• More information is in our full report.

Rating at last inspection:

• This is the first inspection of this service.

Why we inspected:

• This inspection was part of our scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received.

Follow up:

• We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people receive safe, compassionate, high quality care. Further inspections will be planned for future dates.