Rainbow Trust Childrens Charity 1

Updated 7 September 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

One inspector carried out this inspection.

Service and service type

Rainbow Trust Children's Charity 1 provides personal care and support to parents and children where there are children with life threatening or terminal conditions in their family. The support is provided in hospitals, in family homes and in the community.

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

This inspection was announced. 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 registered manager would be available to assist us with our inspection.

What we did before the inspection

We used the information the provider sent us in the provider information return (PIR). This is information providers are required to send us annually with key information about their service, what they do well, and improvements they plan to make.

We reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. We sought feedback from the local authority and professionals who work with the service. We used all this information to plan our inspection.

During the inspection

We spoke to the registered manager, 2 relatives and 4 members of staff. We reviewed a range of records. This included 3 people's care records. We looked at 3 staff files in relation to recruitment and staff supervision as well as staff feedback forms. A variety of records relating to the management of the service, including policies and procedures were also reviewed.

Updated 7 September 2023

About the service

Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity 1 provides support to families who have children or young people with a life limiting or terminal illness. Support is provided to individual families, parents, children and young people. Not everyone using Rainbow Trust Children's Charity 1 receives a regulated activity. CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with 'personal care'; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do, we also take into account any wider social care and support provided. At the time of inspection there were 50 children receiving the regulated activity of ‘personal care’.

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

Everyone talked highly of the service, its employees, and management. People informed us that the assistance they received from staff during the challenging periods of caring for a seriously ill child was invaluable.

People praised the service for being incredibly responsive and caring. Staff followed parental guidance and provided assistance in ways that were suitable and beneficial for each individual family.

Staff assured us they were happy in their positions and glad to represent the charity. They claimed that a company that cared about them and their well-being made them feel heard, valued, and supported. There was a good work environment since the company values, supports and rewards its employees.

Risks were carefully identified, and families received safe support. The registered manager acted on feedback immediately. The service was following safe infection prevention and control procedures to keep people safe.

Employees were able to perform well in emotionally demanding tasks because they were well trained and supported by management.

The registered manager had an effective quality assurance system in place. Regular audits and checks were done. These were used to identify relevant action and lessons learnt. People, relatives, staff and professionals were offered opportunities to provide feedback.

The registered manager was dedicated to upholding the exceptionally high standards of service and was highly respected by the workers and families. Their supervision of the team was clear and they monitored the quality of support and care provided by the staff.

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.

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 good (published 6 September 2017).

Why we inspected

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

We found no evidence during this inspection that people were at risk of harm. Please see the safe, caring and well led sections of this full report.

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating.

You can read the report from our last comprehensive inspection, by selecting the ‘all reports’ link for Rainbow Children’s Trust Charity 1 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.