Updated 7 August 2019
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 one inspector.
Service and service type
Allways Care Community Support Agency is a domiciliary care agency. It is registered to provide personal care to adults living in their own houses and flats.
Notice of inspection
We gave the service a short period of notice of the inspection visit because the registered manager was often out of the office supporting staff or providing care. We needed to be sure that they would be in. We also needed to arrange to speak with people who used the service and their relatives as part of this inspection and with the staff that supported people.
Our inspection activity started on 15 July 2019 and ended on 16 July 2019. As part of this process, we visited the office location on 15 July 2019 to see the manager and office staff; and to review care records and information about how services were being provided.
What we did
In planning our inspection, we reviewed information we had received about the service since the last inspection. This included any notifications (events which happened in the service that the provider is required to tell us about).
The registered provider had completed 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 took this into account when we inspected the service and made the judgements in this report.
We also made contact with Healthwatch. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the views of the public about health and social care services in England.
During our inspection we spoke with ten people and three relatives by telephone to ask about their experience of the care provided. During our visit to the registered providers office we also met with one person, as they wanted to tell us to personally tell us about their experiences of care. We also spoke with the registered providers managing director who was also the nominated individual, the registered manager, two deputy managers, five of the care staff team, the office administrator, and an external health care professional who had worked with the service.
We reviewed a range of written records including specific parts of ten people’s care records, three staff recruitment files and information relating to the administration of medicines and the registered providers auditing and monitoring of service provision.
After the inspection
We continued to seek clarification from the registered manager to support and validate the evidence we found during our inspection. The registered manager provided us with a range of additional training and policy and procedure information as part of this process.