Compassion Care Service Limited Also known as The Crescent King Street

Compassion Care Service Limited provides care to people living in their own homes. 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, 16 people were receiving a service, of which 9 people were receiving the regulated activity of personal care.

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

Guidance for staff about people’s known health conditions and the impact on the person and their care was limited. However, staff were found to be knowledgeable, and the registered manager took immediate action to improve this.

People were protected from abuse and avoidable harm. Staff had received safeguarding training and knew how to recognise and report any form of abuse. Risks associated with people’s individual care needs, including the environment were assessed, planned for and monitored. Care staff were knowledgeable about known risks and actions required of them to keep people safe.

There were enough staff to meet people’s care needs. People received care from regular staff. Care calls were monitored to ensure calls were on time and staff provided care in accordance with people’s assessed needs.

Staff completed ongoing training and support. This included a monthly training topic the registered manager required staff to complete.

Improvements were being made to training in first aid and moving and handling. In addition to theory training, practical training sessions were in the process of being arranged for these areas. Spot checks to review staff competency was completed. Staff were recruited safely.

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.

People were supported with their prescribed medicines safely. Care records were monitored to ensure people received their medicines as required.

Accidents and incidents were recorded, acted upon and action taken to learn and reduce reoccurrence.

Infection prevention and control best practice guidance was followed. Staff wore personal protective equipment to reduce the risk of cross contamination and infection.

The registered manager had systems and processes that assessed, monitored and reviewed the quality and safety of the service. Both the registered manager and director also delivered care to people when required and managed the service effectively having good oversight and leadership.

People who used the service and staff received opportunities to share their experience of the service. The management team along with the staff team, showed a commitment in providing care and support that was consistently of high quality, personalised and supported people to live independently.

People spoke positively and were complementary about the care and support they received. This included how caring and compassionate the staff were and the organisation, communication and responsiveness of the registered manager.

Rating at last inspection

The last rated inspection for this service was good (published 10 February 2018).

Why we inspected

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

For those key questions not inspected, we used the ratings awarded at the last inspection to calculate the overall rating. The overall rating for the service has remained 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 Compassion care Service Limited 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.

This was the first comprehensive inspection carried out at Compassion Care.

Compassion Care provides care and support to people who wish to remain in their own homes. Services include personal care, meal preparation, hospital discharge and medication support. At the time of our inspection there were 13 people receiving personal care.

The service had 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 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

People felt safe. Staff had been provided with safeguarding training to enable them to recognise signs and symptoms of abuse and how to report them. There were risk management plans in place to protect and promote people’s safety. Staffing numbers were appropriate to keep people safe. There were safe recruitment practices in place and these were being followed to ensure staff who were employed were suitable for their role. People’s medicines were managed safely and in line with best practice guidelines.

Systems were in place to ensure that people were protected by the prevention and control of infection. There were arrangements in place for the service to make sure that action was taken and lessons learned when things went wrong, to improve safety across the service

People’s needs and choices were assessed and their care provided in line with best practice that met their diverse needs. Staff received an induction process when they first commenced work at the service and received on-going training to ensure they were able to provide care based on current practice when supporting people.

People received enough to eat and drink and staff gave support when required. People were supported to use and access a wide variety of other services and social care professionals. The staff had a good knowledge of other services available to people and we saw these had been involved with supporting people using the service. People were supported to access health appointments when required, including opticians and doctors, to make sure they received continuing healthcare to meet their needs.

Staff demonstrated their understanding of the Mental Capacity Act, 2005 (MCA) and they gained people's consent before providing personal care.

Staff provided care and support in a caring and meaningful way. People were given choices about their day to day routines and about how they wanted their care to be delivered. People’s privacy and dignity was maintained at all times.

People were listened to, their views were acknowledged and acted upon and care and support was delivered in the way that people chose and preferred. Records showed that people and their relatives were involved in the care planning process. There was a complaints procedure in place to enable people to raise complaints about the service.

People, relatives and staff were encouraged to provide feedback about the service and it was used to drive improvement. Staff felt well-supported and received one to one supervision that gave them an opportunity to share ideas, and exchange information. The registered manager was aware of their responsibility to report events that occurred within the service to CQC and external agencies.